Twilight Saga-Breaking Dawn(Pg300 - end)

“No, I’m fine,” I promised them. My eyes flickered to the stranger in the mirror
and back. “It’s just… a lot to take in.”
Jasper’s brow furrowed, highlighting the two scars over his left eye.
“I don’t know,” Edward murmured.
The woman in the mirror frowned. “What question did I miss?”
Edward grinned. “Jasper wonders how you’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Controlling your emotions, Bella,” Jasper answered. “I’ve never seen a newborn
do that—stop an emotion in its tracks that way. You were upset, but when you
saw our concern, you reined it in, regained power over yourself. I was prepared to
help, but you didn’t need it.”
“Is that wrong?” I asked. My body automatically froze as I waited for his verdict.
“No,” he said, but his voice was unsure.
Edward stroked his hand down my arm, as if encouraging me to thaw. “It’s very
impressive, Bella, but we don’t understand it. We don’t know how long it can
hold.”
I considered that for a portion of a second. At any moment, would I snap? Turn
into a monster?
I couldn’t feel it coming on.… Maybe there was no way to anticipate such a thing.
“But what do you think?” Alice asked, a little impatient now, pointing to the
mirror.
“I’m not sure,” I hedged, not wanting to admit how frightened I really was.
I stared at the beautiful woman with the terrifying eyes, looking for pieces of me.
There was something there in the shape of her lips—if you looked past the
dizzying beauty, it was true that her upper lip was slightly out of balance, a bit too
full to match the lower. Finding this familiar little flaw made me feel a tiny bit
better. Maybe the rest of me was in there, too.
I raised my hand experimentally, and the woman in the mirror copied the
movement, touching her face, too. Her crimson eyes watched me warily.
Edward sighed.
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I turned away from her to look at him, raising one eyebrow.
“Disappointed?” I asked, my ringing voice impassive.
He laughed. “Yes,” he admitted.
I felt the shock break through the composed mask on my face, followed instantly
by the hurt.
Alice snarled. Jasper leaned forward again, waiting for me to snap.
But Edward ignored them and wrapped his arms tightly around my newly frozen
form, pressing his lips against my cheek. “I was rather hoping that I’d be able to
hear your mind, now that it is more similar to my own,” he murmured. “And here
I am, as frustrated as ever, wondering what could possibly be going on inside
your head.”
I felt better at once.
“Oh well,” I said lightly, relieved that my thoughts were still my own. “I guess my
brain will never work right. At least I’m pretty.”
It was becoming easier to joke with him as I adjusted, to think in straight lines.
To be myself.
Edward growled in my ear. “Bella, you have never been merely pretty.”
Then his face pulled away from mine, and he sighed. “All right, all right,” he said
to someone.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re making Jasper more edgy by the second. He may relax a little when
you’ve hunted.”
I looked at Jasper’s worried expression and nodded. I didn’t want to snap here, if
that was coming. Better to be surrounded by trees than family.
“Okay. Let’s hunt,” I agreed, a thrill of nerves and anticipation making my
stomach quiver. I unwrapped Edward’s arms from around me, keeping one of his
hands, and turned my back on the strange and beautiful woman in the mirror.
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21. FIRST HUNT
“The window?” I asked, staring two stories down.
I’d never really been afraid of heights per se, but being able to see all the details
with such clarity made the prospect less appealing. The angles of the rocks below
were sharper than I would have imagined them.
Edward smiled. “It’s the most convenient exit. If you’re frightened, I can carry
you.”
“We have all eternity, and you’re worried about the time it would take to walk to
the back door?”
He frowned slightly. “Renesmee and Jacob are downstairs. . . .”
“Oh.”
Right. I was the monster now. I had to keep away from scents that might trigger
my wild side. From the people that I loved in particular. Even the ones I didn’t
really know yet.
“Is Renesmee… okay… with Jacob there?” I whispered. I realized belatedly that it
must have been Jacob’s heart I’d heard below. I listened hard again, but I could
only hear the one steady pulse. “He doesn’t like her much.”
Edward’s lips tightened in an odd way. “Trust me, she is perfectly safe. I know
exactly what Jacob is thinking.”
“Of course,” I murmured, and looked at the ground again.
“Stalling?” he challenged.
“A little. I don’t know how. . . .”
And I was very conscious of my family behind me, watching silently. Mostly
silently. Emmett had already chuckled under his breath once. One mistake, and
he’d be rolling on the floor. Then the jokes about the world’s only clumsy vampire
would start.…
Also, this dress—that Alice must have put me in sometime when I was too lost in
the burning to notice—was not what I would have picked out for either jumping
or hunting. Tightly fitted ice-blue silk? What did she think I would need it for?
Was there a cocktail party later?
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“Watch me,” Edward said. And then, very casually, he stepped out of the tall,
open window and fell.
I watched carefully, analyzing the angle at which he bent his knees to absorb the
impact. The sound of his landing was very low—a muted thud that could have
been a door softly closed, or a book gently laid on a table.
It didn’t look hard.
Clenching my teeth as I concentrated, I tried to copy his casual step into empty
air.
Ha! The ground seemed to move toward me so slowly that it was nothing at all to
place my feet—what shoes had Alice put me in? Stilettos? She’d lost her mind—to
place my silly shoes exactly right so that landing was no different than stepping
one foot forward on a flat surface.
I absorbed the impact in the balls of my feet, not wanting to snap off the thin
heels. My landing seemed just as quiet as his. I grinned at him.
“Right. Easy.”
He smiled back. “Bella?”
“Yes?”
“That was quite graceful—even for a vampire.”
I considered that for a moment, and then I beamed. If he’d just been saying that,
then Emmett would have laughed. No one found his remark humorous, so it must
have been true. It was the first time anyone had ever applied the word graceful to
me in my entire life… or, well, existence anyway.
“Thank you,” I told him.
And then I hooked the silver satin shoes off my feet one by one and lobbed them
together back through the open window. A little too hard, maybe, but I heard
someone catch them before they could damage the paneling.
Alice grumbled, “Her fashion sense hasn’t improved as much as her balance.”
Edward took my hand—I couldn’t stop marveling at the smoothness, the
comfortable temperature of his skin—and darted through the backyard to the
edge of the river. I went along with him effortlessly.
Everything physical seemed very simple.
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“Are we swimming?” I asked him when we stopped beside the water.
“And ruin your pretty dress? No. We’re jumping.”
I pursed my lips, considering. The river was about fifty yards wide here.
“You first,” I said.
He touched my cheek, took two quick backward strides, and then ran back those
two steps, launching himself from a flat stone firmly embedded in the riverbank.
I studied the flash of movement as he arced over the water, finally turning a
somersault just before he disappeared into the thick trees on the other side of the
river.
“Show-off,” I muttered, and heard his invisible laugh.
I backed up five paces, just in case, and took a deep breath.
Suddenly, I was anxious again. Not about falling or getting hurt—I was more
worried about the forest getting hurt.
It had come on slowly, but I could feel it now—the raw, massive strength thrilling
in my limbs. I was suddenly sure that if I wanted to tunnel under the river, to
claw or beat my way straight through the bedrock, it wouldn’t take me very long.
The objects around me—the trees, the shrubs, the rocks… the house—had all
begun to look very fragile.
Hoping very much that Esme was not particularly fond of any specific trees
across the river, I began my first stride. And then stopped when the tight satin
split six inches up my thigh. Alice!
Well, Alice always seemed to treat clothes as if they were disposable and meant
for one-time usage, so she shouldn’t mind this. I bent to carefully grasp the hem
at the undamaged right seam between my fingers and, exerting the tiniest
amount of pressure possible, I ripped the dress open to the top of my thigh. Then
I fixed the other side to match.
Much better.
I could hear the muffled laughter in the house, and even the sound of someone
gritting her teeth. The laughter came from upstairs and down, and I very easily
recognized the much different, rough, throaty chuckle from the first floor.
So Jacob was watching, too? I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking now, or
what he was still doing here. I’d envisioned our reunion—if he could ever forgive
me—taking place far in the future, when I was more stable, and time had healed
the wounds I’d inflicted in his heart.
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I didn’t turn to look at him now, wary of my mood swings. It wouldn’t be good to
let any emotion take too strong a hold on my frame of mind. Jasper’s fears had
me on edge, too. I had to hunt before I dealt with anything else. I tried to forget
everything else so I could concentrate.
“Bella?” Edward called from the woods, his voice moving closer. “Do you want to
watch again?”
But I remembered everything perfectly, of course, and I didn’t want to give
Emmett a reason to find more humor in my education. This was physical—it
should be instinctive. So I took a deep breath and ran for the river.
Unhindered by my skirt, it took only one long bound to reach the water’s edge.
Just an eighty-fourth of a second, and yet it was plenty of time—my eyes and my
mind moved so quickly that one step was enough. It was simple to position my
right foot just so against the flat stone and exert the adequate pressure to send
my body wheeling up into the air. I was paying more attention to aim than force,
and I erred on the amount of power necessary—but at least I didn’t err on the side
that would have gotten me wet. The fifty yard width was slightly too easy a
distance. . . .
It was a strange, giddy, electrifying thing, but a short thing. An entire second had
yet to pass, and I was across.
I was expecting the close-packed trees to be a problem, but they were surprisingly
helpful. It was a simple matter to reach out with one sure hand as I fell back
toward the earth again deep inside the forest and catch myself on a convenient
branch; I swung lightly from the limb and landed on my toes, still fifteen feet
from the ground on the wide bough of a Sitka spruce.
It was fabulous.
Over the sound of my peals of delighted laughter, I could hear Edward racing to
find me. My jump had been twice as long as his. When he reached my tree, his
eyes were wide. I leaped nimbly from the branch to his side, soundlessly landing
again on the balls of my feet.
“Was that good?” I wondered, my breathing accelerated with excitement.
“Very good.” He smiled approvingly, but his casual tone didn’t match the
surprised expression in his eyes.
“Can we do it again?”
“Focus, Bella—we’re on a hunting trip.”
“Oh, right.” I nodded. “Hunting.”
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“Follow me… if you can.” He grinned, his expression suddenly taunting, and
broke into a run.
He was faster than me. I couldn’t imagine how he moved his legs with such
blinding speed, but it was beyond me. However, I was stronger, and every stride
of mine matched the length of three of his. And so I flew with him through the
living green web, by his side, not following at all. As I ran, I couldn’t help
laughing quietly at the thrill of it; the laughter neither slowed me nor upset my
focus.
I could finally understand why Edward never hit the trees when he ran—a
question that had always been a mystery to me. It was a peculiar sensation, the
balance between the speed and the clarity. For, while I rocketed over, under, and
through the thick jade maze at a rate that should have reduced everything around
me to a streaky green blur, I could plainly see each tiny leaf on all the small
branches of every insignificant shrub that I passed.
The wind of my speed blew my hair and my torn dress out behind me, and,
though I knew it shouldn’t, it felt warm against my skin. Just as the rough forest
floor shouldn’t feel like velvet beneath my bare soles, and the limbs that whipped
against my skin shouldn’t feel like caressing feathers.
The forest was much more alive than I’d ever known—small creatures whose
existence I’d never guessed at teemed in the leaves around me. They all grew
silent after we passed, their breath quickening in fear. The animals had a much
wiser reaction to our scent than humans seemed to. Certainly, it’d had the
opposite effect on me.
I kept waiting to feel winded, but my breath came effortlessly. I waited for the
burn to begin in my muscles, but my strength only seemed to increase as I grew
accustomed to my stride. My leaping bounds stretched longer, and soon he was
trying to keep up with me. I laughed again, exultant, when I heard him falling
behind. My naked feet touched the ground so infrequently now it felt more like
flying than running.
“Bella,” he called dryly, his voice even, lazy. I could hear nothing else; he had
stopped.
I briefly considered mutiny.
But, with a sigh, I whirled and skipped lightly to his side, some hundred yards
back. I looked at him expectantly. He was smiling, with one eyebrow raised. He
was so beautiful that I could only stare.
“Did you want to stay in the country?” he asked, amused. “Or were you planning
to continue on to Canada this afternoon?”
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“This is fine,” I agreed, concentrating less on what he was saying and more on the
mesmerizing way his lips moved when he spoke. It was hard not to become
sidetracked with everything fresh in my strong new eyes. “What are we hunting?”
“Elk. I thought something easy for your first time . . .” He trailed off when my
eyes narrowed at the word easy.
But I wasn’t going to argue; I was too thirsty. As soon as I’d started to think about
the dry burn in my throat, it was all I could think about. Definitely getting worse.
My mouth felt like four o’clock on a June afternoon in Death Valley.
“Where?” I asked, scanning the trees impatiently. Now that I had given the thirst
my attention, it seemed to taint every other thought in my head, leaking into the
more pleasant thoughts of running and Edward’s lips and kissing and… scorching
thirst. I couldn’t get away from it.
“Hold still for a minute,” he said, putting his hands lightly on my shoulders. The
urgency of my thirst receded momentarily at his touch.
“Now close your eyes,” he murmured. When I obeyed, he raised his hands to my
face, stroking my cheekbones. I felt my breathing speed and waited briefly again
for the blush that wouldn’t come.
“Listen,” Edward instructed. “What do you hear?”
Everything, I could have said; his perfect voice, his breath, his lips brushing
together as he spoke, the whisper of birds preening their feathers in the treetops,
their fluttering heartbeats, the maple leaves scraping together, the faint clicking
of ants following each other in a long line up the bark of the nearest tree. But I
knew he meant something specific, so I let my ears range outward, seeking
something different than the small hum of life that surrounded me. There was an
open space near us—the wind had a different sound across the exposed grass—
and a small creek, with a rocky bed. And there, near the noise of the water, was
the splash of lapping tongues, the loud thudding of heavy hearts, pumping thick
streams of blood. . . .
It felt like the sides of my throat had sucked closed.
“By the creek, to the northeast?” I asked, my eyes still shut.
“Yes.” His tone was approving. “Now… wait for the breeze again and… what do
you smell?”
Mostly him—his strange honey-lilac-and-sun perfume. But also the rich, earthy
smell of rot and moss, the resin in the evergreens, the warm, almost nutty aroma
of the small rodents cowering beneath the tree roots. And then, reaching out
again, the clean smell of the water, which was surprisingly unappealing despite
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my thirst. I focused toward the water and found the scent that must have gone
with the lapping noise and the pounding heart. Another warm smell, rich and
tangy, stronger than the others. And yet nearly as unappealing as the brook. I
wrinkled my nose.
He chuckled. “I know—it takes some getting used to.”
“Three?” I guessed.
“Five. There are two more in the trees behind them.”
“What do I do now?”
His voice sounded like he was smiling. “What do you feel like doing?”
I thought about that, my eyes still shut as I listened and breathed in the scent.
Another bout of baking thirst intruded on my awareness, and suddenly the warm,
tangy odor wasn’t quite so objectionable. At least it would be something hot and
wet in my desiccated mouth. My eyes snapped open.
“Don’t think about it,” he suggested as he lifted his hands off my face and took a
step back. “Just follow your instincts.”
I let myself drift with the scent, barely aware of my movement as I ghosted down
the incline to the narrow meadow where the stream flowed. My body shifted
forward automatically into a low crouch as I hesitated at the fern-fringed edge of
the trees. I could see a big buck, two dozen antler points crowning his head, at the
stream’s edge, and the shadow-spotted shapes of the four others heading
eastward into forest at a leisurely pace.
I centered myself around the scent of the male, the hot spot in his shaggy neck
where the warmth pulsed strongest. Only thirty yards—two or three bounds—
between us. I tensed myself for the first leap.
But as my muscles bunched in preparation, the wind shifted, blowing stronger
now, and from the south. I didn’t stop to think, hurtling out of the trees in a path
perpendicular to my original plan, scaring the elk into the forest, racing after a
new fragrance so attractive that there wasn’t a choice. It was compulsory.
The scent ruled completely. I was single-minded as I traced it, aware only of the
thirst and the smell that promised to quench it. The thirst got worse, so painful
now that it confused all my other thoughts and began to remind me of the burn of
venom in my veins.
There was only one thing that had any chance of penetrating my focus now, an
instinct more powerful, more basic than the need to quench the fire—it was the
instinct to protect myself from danger. Self-preservation.
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I was suddenly alert to the fact that I was being followed. The pull of the
irresistible scent warred with the impulse to turn and defend my hunt. A bubble
of sound built in my chest, my lips pulled back of their own accord to expose my
teeth in warning. My feet slowed, the need to protect my back struggling against
the desire to quench my thirst.
And then I could hear my pursuer gaining, and defense won. As I spun, the rising
sound ripped its way up my throat and out.
The feral snarl, coming from my own mouth, was so unexpected that it brought
me up short. It unsettled me, and it cleared my head for a second—the thirstdriven
haze receded, though the thirst burned on.
The wind shifted, blowing the smell of wet earth and coming rain across my face,
further freeing me from the other scent’s fiery grip—a scent so delicious it could
only be human.
Edward hesitated a few feet away, his arms raised as if to embrace me—or
restrain me. His face was intent and cautious as I froze, horrified.
I realized that I had been about to attack him. With a hard jerk, I straightened out
of my defensive crouch. I held my breath as I refocused, fearing the power of the
fragrance swirling up from the south.
He could see reason return to my face, and he took a step toward me, lowering his
arms.
“I have to get away from here,” I spit through my teeth, using the breath I had.
Shock crossed his face. “Can you leave?”
I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant by that. I knew the ability to think
clearly would last only as long as I could stop myself from thinking of—
I burst into a run again, a flat-out sprint straight north, concentrating solely on
the uncomfortable feeling of sensory deprivation that seemed to be my body’s
only response to the lack of air. My one goal was to run far enough away that the
scent behind me would be completely lost. Impossible to find, even if I changed
my mind…
Once again, I was aware of being followed, but I was sane this time. I fought the
instinct to breathe—to use the flavors in the air to be sure it was Edward. I didn’t
have to fight long; though I was running faster than I ever had before, shooting
like a comet through the straightest path I could find in the trees; Edward caught
up with me after a short minute.
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A new thought occurred to me, and I stopped dead, my feet planted. I was sure it
must be safe here, but I held my breath just in case.
Edward blew past me, surprised by my sudden freeze. He wheeled around and
was at my side in a second. He put his hands on my shoulders and stared into my
eyes, shock still the dominant emotion on his face.
“How did you do that?” he demanded.
“You let me beat you before, didn’t you?” I demanded back, ignoring his question.
And I’d thought I’d been doing so well!
When I opened my mouth, I could taste the air—it was unpolluted now, with no
trace of the compelling perfume to torment my thirst. I took a cautious breath.
He shrugged and shook his head, refusing to be deflected. “Bella, how did you do
it?”
“Run away? I held my breath.”
“But how did you stop hunting?”
“When you came up behind me… I’m so sorry about that.”
“Why are you apologizing to me? I’m the one who was horribly careless. I
assumed no one would be so far from the trails, but I should have checked first.
Such a stupid mistake! You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But I growled at you!” I was still horrified that I was physically capable of such
blasphemy.
“Of course you did. That’s only natural. But I can’t understand how you ran
away.”
“What else could I do?” I asked. His attitude confused me—what did he want to
have happened? “It might have been someone I know!”
He startled me, suddenly bursting into a spasm of loud laughter, throwing his
head back and letting the sound echo off the trees.
“Why are you laughing at me?”
He stopped at once, and I could see he was wary again.
Keep it under control, I thought to myself. I had to watch my temper. Just like I
was a young werewolf rather than a vampire.
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“I’m not laughing at you, Bella. I’m laughing because I am in shock. And I am in
shock because I am completely amazed.”
“Why?”
“You shouldn’t be able to do any of this. You shouldn’t be so… so rational. You
shouldn’t be able to stand here discussing this with me calmly and coolly. And,
much more than any of that, you should not have been able to break off mid-hunt
with the scent of human blood in the air. Even mature vampires have difficulty
with that—we’re always very careful of where we hunt so as not to put ourselves
in the path of temptation. Bella, you’re behaving like you’re decades rather than
days old.”
“Oh.” But I’d known it was going to be hard. That was why I’d been so on guard.
I’d been expecting it to be difficult.
He put his hands on my face again, and his eyes were full of wonder. “What
wouldn’t I give to be able to see into your mind for just this one moment.”
Such powerful emotions. I’d been prepared for the thirst part, but not this. I’d
been so sure it wouldn’t be the same when he touched me. Well, truthfully, it
wasn’t the same.
It was stronger.
I reached up to trace the planes of his face; my fingers lingered on his lips.
“I thought I wouldn’t feel this way for a long time?” My uncertainty made the
words a question. “But I still want you.”
He blinked in shock. “How can you even concentrate on that? Aren’t you
unbearably thirsty?”
Of course I was now, now that he’d brought it up again!
I tried to swallow and then sighed, closing my eyes like I had before to help me
concentrate. I let my senses range out around me, tensed this time in case of
another onslaught of the delicious taboo scent.
Edward dropped his hands, not even breathing while I listened farther and
farther out into the web of green life, sifting through the scents and sounds for
something not totally repellant to my thirst. There was a hint of something
different, a faint trail to the east. . . .
My eyes flashed open, but my focus was still on sharper senses as I turned and
darted silently eastward. The ground sloped steeply upward almost at once, and I
ran in a hunting crouch, close to the ground, taking to the trees when that was
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easier. I sensed rather than heard Edward with me, flowing quietly through the
woods, letting me lead.
The vegetation thinned as we climbed higher; the scent of pitch and resin grew
more powerful, as did the trail I followed—it was a warm scent, sharper than the
smell of the elk and more appealing. A few seconds more and I could hear the
muted padding of immense feet, so much subtler than the crunch of hooves. The
sound was up—in the branches rather than on the ground. Automatically I darted
into the boughs as well, gaining the strategic higher position, halfway up a
towering silver fir.
The soft thud of paws continued stealthily beneath me now; the rich scent was
very close. My eyes pinpointed the movement linked with the sound, and I saw
the tawny hide of the great cat slinking along the wide branch of a spruce just
down and to the left of my perch. He was big—easily four times my mass. His eyes
were intent on the ground beneath; the cat hunted, too. I caught the smell of
something smaller, bland next to the aroma of my prey, cowering in brush below
the tree. The lion’s tail twitched spasmodically as he prepared to spring.
With a light bound, I sailed through the air and landed on the lion’s branch. He
felt the shiver of the wood and whirled, shrieking surprise and defiance. He
clawed the space between us, his eyes bright with fury. Half-crazed with thirst, I
ignored the exposed fangs and the hooked claws and launched myself at him,
knocking us both to the forest floor.
It wasn’t much of a fight.
His raking claws could have been caressing fingers for all the impact they had on
my skin. His teeth could find no purchase against my shoulder or my throat. His
weight was nothing. My teeth unerringly sought his throat, and his instinctive
resistance was pitifully feeble against my strength. My jaws locked easily over the
precise point where the heat flow concentrated.
It was effortless as biting into butter. My teeth were steel razors; they cut through
the fur and fat and sinews like they weren’t there.
The flavor was wrong, but the blood was hot and wet and it soothed the ragged,
itching thirst as I drank in an eager rush. The cat’s struggles grew more and more
feeble, and his screams choked off with a gurgle. The warmth of the blood
radiated throughout my whole body, heating even my fingertips and toes.
The lion was finished before I was. The thirst flared again when he ran dry, and I
shoved his carcass off my body in disgust. How could I still be thirsty after all
that?
I wrenched myself erect in one quick move. Standing, I realized I was a bit of a
mess. I wiped my face off on the back of my arm and tried to fix the dress. The
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claws that had been so ineffectual against my skin had had more success with the
thin satin.
“Hmm,” Edward said. I looked up to see him leaning casually against a tree
trunk, watching me with a thoughtful look on his face.
“I guess I could have done that better.” I was covered in dirt, my hair knotted, my
dress bloodstained and hanging in tatters. Edward didn’t come home from
hunting trips looking like this.
“You did perfectly fine,” he assured me. “It’s just that… it was much more difficult
for me to watch than it should have been.”
I raised my eyebrows, confused.
“It goes against the grain,” he explained, “letting you wrestle with lions. I was
having an anxiety attack the whole time.”
“Silly.”
“I know. Old habits die hard. I like the improvements to your dress, though.”
If I could have blushed, I would have. I changed the subject. “Why am I still
thirsty?”
“Because you’re young.”
I sighed. “And I don’t suppose there are any other mountain lions nearby.”
“Plenty of deer, though.”
I made a face. “They don’t smell as good.”
“Herbivores. The meat-eaters smell more like humans,” he explained.
“Not that much like humans,” I disagreed, trying not to remember.
“We could go back,” he said solemnly, but there was a teasing light in his eye.
“Whoever it was out there, if they were men, they probably wouldn’t even mind
death if you were the one delivering it.” His gaze ran over my ravaged dress again.
“In fact, they would think they were already dead and gone to heaven the moment
they saw you.”
I rolled my eyes and snorted. “Let’s go hunt some stinking herbivores.”
We found a large herd of mule deer as we ran back toward home. He hunted with
me this time, now that I’d gotten the hang of it. I brought down a large buck,
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making nearly as much of a mess as I had with the lion. He’d finished with two
before I was done with the first, not a hair ruffled, not a spot on his white shirt.
We chased the scattered and terrified herd, but instead of feeding again, this time
I watched carefully to see how he was able to hunt so neatly.
All the times that I had wished that Edward would not have to leave me behind
when he hunted, I had secretly been just a little relieved. Because I was sure that
seeing this would be frightening. Horrifying. That seeing him hunt would finally
make him look like a vampire to me.
Of course, it was much different from this perspective, as a vampire myself. But I
doubted that even my human eyes would have missed the beauty here.
It was a surprisingly sensual experience to observe Edward hunting. His smooth
spring was like the sinuous strike of a snake; his hands were so sure, so strong, so
completely inescapable; his full lips were perfect as they parted gracefully over
his gleaming teeth. He was glorious. I felt a sudden jolt of both pride and desire.
He was mine. Nothing could ever separate him from me now. I was too strong to
be torn from his side.
He was very quick. He turned to me and gazed curiously at my gloating
expression.
“No longer thirsty?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You distracted me. You’re much better at it than I am.”
“Centuries of practice.” He smiled. His eyes were a disconcertingly lovely shade of
honey gold now.
“Just one,” I corrected him.
He laughed. “Are you done for today? Or did you want to continue?”
“Done, I think.” I felt very full, sort of sloshy, even. I wasn’t sure how much more
liquid would fit into my body. But the burn in my throat was only muted. Then
again, I’d known that thirst was just an inescapable part of this life.
And worth it.
I felt in control. Perhaps my sense of security was false, but I did feel pretty good
about not killing anyone today. If I could resist totally human strangers, wouldn’t
I be able to handle the werewolf and a half-vampire child that I loved?
“I want to see Renesmee,” I said. Now that my thirst was tamed (if nothing close
to erased), my earlier worries were hard to forget. I wanted to reconcile the
stranger who was my daughter with the creature I’d loved three days ago. It was
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so odd, so wrong not to have her inside me still. Abruptly, I felt empty and
uneasy.
He held out his hand to me. I took it, and his skin felt warmer than before. His
cheek was faintly flushed, the shadows under his eyes all but vanished.
I was unable to resist stroking his face again. And again.
I sort of forgot that I was waiting for a response to my request as I stared into his
shimmering gold eyes.
It was almost as hard as it had been to turn away from the scent of human blood,
but I somehow kept the need to be careful firmly in my head as I stretched up on
my toes and wrapped my arms around him. Gently.
He was not so hesitant in his movements; his arms locked around my waist and
pulled me tight against his body. His lips crushed down on mine, but they felt
soft. My lips no longer shaped themselves around his; they held their own.
Like before, it was as if the touch of his skin, his lips, his hands, was sinking right
through my smooth, hard skin and into my new bones. To the very core of my
body. I hadn’t imagined that I could love him more than I had.
My old mind hadn’t been capable of holding this much love. My old heart had not
been strong enough to bear it.
Maybe this was the part of me that I’d brought forward to be intensified in my
new life. Like Carlisle’s compassion and Esme’s devotion. I would probably never
be able to do anything interesting or special like Edward, Alice, and Jasper could
do. Maybe I would just love Edward more than anyone in the history of the world
had ever loved anyone else.
I could live with that.
I remembered parts of this—twisting my fingers in his hair, tracing the planes of
his chest—but other parts were so new. He was new. It was an entirely different
experience with Edward kissing me so fearlessly, so forcefully. I responded to his
intensity, and then suddenly we were falling.
“Oops,” I said, and he laughed underneath me. “I didn’t mean to tackle you like
that. Are you okay?”
He stroked my face. “Slightly better than okay.” And then a perplexed expression
crossed his face. “Renesmee?” he asked uncertainly, trying to ascertain what I
wanted most in this moment. A very difficult question to answer, because I
wanted so many things at the same time.
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I could tell that he wasn’t exactly averse to procrastinating our return trip, and it
was hard to think about much besides his skin on mine—there really wasn’t that
much left of the dress. But my memory of Renesmee, before and after her birth,
was becoming more and more dreamlike to me. More unlikely. All my memories
of her were human memories; an aura of artificiality clung to them. Nothing
seemed real that I hadn’t seen with these eyes, touched with these hands.
Every minute, the reality of that little stranger slipped further away.
“Renesmee,” I agreed, rueful, and I whipped back up onto my feet, pulling him
with me.
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22. PROMISED
Thinking of Renesmee brought her to that center-stage place in my strange, new,
and roomy but distractible mind. So many questions.
“Tell me about her,” I insisted as he took my hand. Being linked barely slowed us.
“She’s like nothing else in the world,” he told me, and the sound of an almost
religious devotion was there again in his voice.
I felt a sharp pang of jealousy over this stranger. He knew her and I did not. It
wasn’t fair.
“How much is she like you? How much like me? Or like I was, anyway.”
“It seems a fairly even divide.”
“She was warm-blooded,” I remembered.
“Yes. She has a heartbeat, though it runs a little bit faster than a human’s. Her
temperature is a little bit hotter than usual, too. She sleeps.”
“Really?”
“Quite well for a newborn. The only parents in the world who don’t need sleep,
and our child already sleeps through the night.” He chuckled.
I liked the way he said our child. The words made her more real.
“She has exactly your color eyes—so that didn’t get lost, after all.” He smiled at
me. “They’re so beautiful.”
“And the vampire parts?” I asked.
“Her skin seems about as impenetrable as ours. Not that anyone would dream of
testing that.”
I blinked at him, a little shocked.
“Of course no one would,” he assured me again. “Her diet… well, she prefers to
drink blood. Carlisle continues to try to persuade her to drink some baby formula,
too, but she doesn’t have much patience with it. Can’t say that I blame her—
nasty-smelling stuff, even for human food.”
I gaped openly at him now. He made it sound like they were having
conversations. “Persuade her?”
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“She’s intelligent, shockingly so, and progressing at an immense pace. Though
she doesn’t speak—yet—she communicates quite effectively.”
“Doesn’t. Speak. Yet.”
He slowed our pace further, letting me absorb this.
“What do you mean, she communicates effectively?” I demanded.
“I think it will be easier for you to… see for yourself. It’s rather difficult to
describe.”
I considered that. I knew there was a lot that I needed to see for myself before it
would be real. I wasn’t sure how much more I was ready for, so I changed the
subject.
“Why is Jacob still here?” I asked. “How can he stand it? Why should he?” My
ringing voice trembled a little. “Why should he have to suffer more?”
“Jacob isn’t suffering,” he said in a strange new tone. “Though I might be willing
to change his condition,” Edward added through his teeth.
“Edward!” I hissed, yanking him to a stop (and feeling a little thrill of smugness
that I was able to do it). “How can you say that? Jacob has given up everything to
protect us! What I’ve put him through—!” I cringed at the dim memory of shame
and guilt. It seemed odd now that I had needed him so much then. That sense of
absence without him near had vanished; it must have been a human weakness.
“You’ll see exactly how I can say that,” Edward muttered. “I promised him that I
would let him explain, but I doubt you’ll see it much differently than I do. Of
course, I’m often wrong about your thoughts, aren’t I?” He pursed his lips and
eyed me.
“Explain what?”
Edward shook his head. “I promised. Though I don’t know if I really owe him
anything at all anymore. . . .” His teeth ground together.
“Edward, I don’t understand.” Frustration and indignation took over my head.
He stroked my cheek and then smiled gently when my face smoothed out in
response, desire momentarily overruling annoyance. “It’s harder than you make
it look, I know. I remember.”
“I don’t like feeling confused.”
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“I know. And so let’s get you home, so that you can see it all for yourself.” His
eyes ran over the remains of my dress as he spoke of going home, and he
frowned. “Hmm.” After a half second of thought, he unbuttoned his white shirt
and held it out for me to put my arms through.
“That bad?”
He grinned.
I slipped my arms into his sleeves and then buttoned it swiftly over my ragged
bodice. Of course, that left him without a shirt, and it was impossible not to find
that distracting.
“I’ll race you,” I said, and then cautioned, “no throwing the game this time!”
He dropped my hand and grinned. “On your mark . . .”
Finding my way to my new home was simpler than walking down Charlie’s street
to my old one. Our scent left a clear and easy trail to follow, even running as fast
as I could.
Edward had me beat till we hit the river. I took a chance and made my leap early,
trying to use my extra strength to win.
“Ha!” I exulted when I heard my feet touch the grass first.
Listening for his landing, I heard something I did not expect. Something loud and
much too close. A thudding heart.
Edward was beside me in the same second, his hands clamped down hard on the
tops of my arms.
“Don’t breathe,” he cautioned me urgently.
I tried not to panic as I froze mid-breath. My eyes were the only things that
moved, wheeling instinctively to find the source of the sound.
Jacob stood at the line where the forest touched the Cullens’ lawn, his arms
folded across his body, his jaw clenched tight. Invisible in the woods behind him,
I heard now two larger hearts, and the faint crush of bracken under huge, pacing
paws.
“Carefully, Jacob,” Edward said. A snarl from the forest echoed the concern in his
voice. “Maybe this isn’t the best way—”
“You think it would be better to let her near the baby first?” Jacob interrupted.
“It’s safer to see how Bella does with me. I heal fast.”
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This was a test? To see if I could not kill Jacob before I tried to not kill
Renesmee? I felt sick in the strangest way—it had nothing to do with my stomach,
only my mind. Was this Edward’s idea?
I glanced at his face anxiously; Edward seemed to deliberate for a moment, and
then his expression twisted from concern into something else. He shrugged, and
there was an undercurrent of hostility in his voice when he said, “It’s your neck, I
guess.”
The growl from the forest was furious this time; Leah, I had no doubt.
What was with Edward? After all that we’d been through, shouldn’t he have been
able to feel some kindness for my best friend? I’d thought—maybe foolishly—that
Edward was sort of Jacob’s friend now, too. I must have misread them.
But what was Jacob doing? Why would he offer himself as a test to protect
Renesmee?
It didn’t make any sense to me. Even if our friendship had survived…
And as my eyes met Jacob’s now, I thought that maybe it had. He still looked like
my best friend. But he wasn’t the one who had changed. What did I look like to
him?
Then he smiled his familiar smile, the smile of a kindred spirit, and I was sure our
friendship was intact. It was just like before, when we were hanging out in his
homemade garage, just two friends killing time. Easy and normal. Again, I
noticed that the strange need I’d felt for him before I’d changed was completely
gone. He was just my friend, the way it was supposed to be.
It still made no sense what he was doing now, though. Was he really so selfless
that he would try to protect me—with his own life—from doing something in an
uncontrolled split second that I would regret in agony forever? That went way
beyond simply tolerating what I had become, or miraculously managing to stay
my friend. Jacob was one of the best people I knew, but this seemed like too
much to accept from anyone.
His grin widened, and he shuddered slightly. “I gotta say it, Bells. You’re a freak
show.”
I grinned back, falling easily into the old pattern. This was a side of him I
understood.
Edward growled. “Watch yourself, mongrel.”
The wind blew from behind me and I quickly filled my lungs with the safe air so I
could speak. “No, he’s right. The eyes are really something, aren’t they?”
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“Super-creepy. But it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Gee—thanks for the amazing compliment!”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. You still look like you—sort of. Maybe
it’s not the look so much as… you are Bella. I didn’t think it would feel like you
were still here.” He smiled at me again without a trace of bitterness or resentment
anywhere in his face. Then he chuckled and said, “Anyway, I guess I’ll get used to
the eyes soon enough.”
“You will?” I asked, confused. It was wonderful that we were still friends, but it
wasn’t like we’d be spending much time together.
The strangest look crossed his face, erasing the smile. It was almost… guilty?
Then his eyes shifted to Edward.
“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d be able to keep it from her, promise or
not. Usually, you just give her everything she wants.”
“Maybe I’m hoping she’ll get irritated and rip your head off,” Edward suggested.
Jacob snorted.
“What’s going on? Are you two keeping secrets from me?” I demanded,
incredulous.
“I’ll explain later,” Jacob said self-consciously—like he didn’t really plan on it.
Then he changed the subject. “First, let’s get this show on the road.” His grin was
a challenge now as he started slowly forward.
There was a whine of protest behind him, and then Leah’s gray body slid out of
the trees behind him. The taller, sandy-colored Seth was right behind her.
“Cool it, guys,” Jacob said. “Stay out of this.”
I was glad they didn’t listen to him but only followed after him a little more
slowly.
The wind was still now; it wouldn’t blow his scent away from me.
He got close enough that I could feel the heat of his body in the air between us.
My throat burned in response.
“C’mon, Bells. Do your worst.”
Leah hissed.
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I didn’t want to breathe. It wasn’t right to take such dangerous advantage of
Jacob, no matter if he was the one offering. But I couldn’t get away from the logic.
How else could I be sure that I wouldn’t hurt Renesmee?
“I’m getting older here, Bella,” Jacob taunted. “Okay, not technically, but you get
the idea. Go on, take a whiff.”
“Hold on to me,” I said to Edward, cringing back into his chest.
His hands tightened on my arms.
I locked my muscles in place, hoping I could keep them frozen. I resolved that I
would do at least as well as I had on the hunt. Worst-case scenario, I would stop
breathing and run for it. Nervously, I took a tiny breath in through my nose,
braced for anything.
It hurt a little, but my throat was already burning dully anyway. Jacob didn’t
smell that much more human than the mountain lion. There was an animal edge
to his blood that instantly repelled. Though the loud, wet sound of his heart was
appealing, the scent that went with it made my nose wrinkle. It was actually
easier with the smell to temper my reaction to the sound and heat of his pulsing
blood.
I took another breath and relaxed. “Huh. I can see what everyone’s been going on
about. You stink, Jacob.”
Edward burst into laughter; his hands slipped from my shoulders to wrap around
my waist. Seth barked a low chortle in harmony with Edward; he came a little
closer while Leah retreated several paces. And then I was aware of another
audience when I heard Emmett’s low, distinct guffaw, muffled a little by the glass
wall between us.
“Look who’s talking,” Jacob said, theatrically plugging his nose. His face didn’t
pucker at all while Edward embraced me, not even when Edward composed
himself and whispered “I love you” in my ear. Jacob just kept grinning. This
made me feel hopeful that things were going to be right between us, the way they
hadn’t been for so long now. Maybe now I could truly be his friend, since I
disgusted him enough physically that he couldn’t love me the same way as before.
Maybe that was all that was needed.
“Okay, so I passed, right?” I said. “Now are you going to tell me what this big
secret is?”
Jacob’s expression became very nervous. “It’s nothing you need to worry about
this second. . . .”
I heard Emmett chuckle again—a sound of anticipation.
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I would have pressed my point, but as I listened to Emmett, I heard other sounds,
too. Seven people breathing. One set of lungs moving more rapidly than the
others. Only one heart fluttering like a bird’s wings, light and quick.
I was totally diverted. My daughter was just on the other side of that thin wall of
glass. I couldn’t see her—the light bounced off the reflective windows like a
mirror. I could only see myself, looking very strange—so white and still—
compared to Jacob. Or, compared to Edward, looking exactly right.
“Renesmee,” I whispered. Stress made me a statue again. Renesmee wasn’t going
to smell like an animal. Would I put her in danger?
“Come and see,” Edward murmured. “I know you can handle this.”
“You’ll help me?” I whispered through motionless lips.
“Of course I will.”
“And Emmett and Jasper—just in case?”
“We’ll take care of you, Bella. Don’t worry, we’ll be ready. None of us would risk
Renesmee. I think you’ll be surprised at how entirely she’s already wrapped us all
around her little fingers. She’ll be perfectly safe, no matter what.”
My yearning to see her, to understand the worship in his voice, broke my frozen
pose. I took a step forward.
And then Jacob was in my way, his face a mask of worry.
“Are you sure, bloodsucker?” he demanded of Edward, his voice almost pleading.
I’d never heard him speak to Edward that way. “I don’t like this. Maybe she
should wait—”
“You had your test, Jacob.”
It was Jacob’s test?
“But—,” Jacob began.
“But nothing,” Edward said, suddenly exasperated. “Bella needs to see our
daughter. Get out of her way.”
Jacob shot me an odd, frantic look and then turned and nearly sprinted into the
house ahead of us.
Edward growled.
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I couldn’t make sense of their confrontation, and I couldn’t concentrate on it,
either. I could only think about the blurred child in my memory and struggle
against the haziness, trying to remember her face exactly.
“Shall we?” Edward said, his voice gentle again.
I nodded nervously.
He took my hand tightly in his and led the way into the house.
They waited for me in a smiling line that was both welcoming and defensive.
Rosalie was several paces behind the rest of them, near the front door. She was
alone until Jacob joined her and then stood in front of her, closer than was
normal. There was no sense of comfort in that closeness; both of them seemed to
cringe from the proximity.
Someone very small was leaning forward out of Rosalie’s arms, peering around
Jacob. Immediately, she had my absolute attention, my every thought, the way
nothing else had owned them since the moment I’d opened my eyes.
“I was out just two days?” I gasped, disbelieving.
The stranger-child in Rosalie’s arms had to be weeks, if not months, old. She was
maybe twice the size of the baby in my dim memory, and she seemed to be
supporting her own torso easily as she stretched toward me. Her shiny bronzecolored
hair fell in ringlets past her shoulders. Her chocolate brown eyes
examined me with an interest that was not at all childlike; it was adult, aware and
intelligent. She raised one hand, reaching in my direction for a moment, and then
reached back to touch Rosalie’s throat.
If her face had not been astonishing in its beauty and perfection, I wouldn’t have
believed it was the same child. My child.
But Edward was there in her features, and I was there in the color of her eyes and
cheeks. Even Charlie had a place in her thick curls, though their color matched
Edward’s. She must be ours. Impossible, but still true.
Seeing this unanticipated little person did not make her more real, though. It
only made her more fantastic.
Rosalie patted the hand against her neck and murmured, “Yes, that’s her.”
Renesmee’s eyes stayed locked on mine. Then, as she had just seconds after her
violent birth, she smiled at me. A brilliant flash of tiny, perfect white teeth.
Reeling inside, I took a hesitant step toward her.
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Everyone moved very fast.
Emmett and Jasper were right in front of me, shoulder to shoulder, hands ready.
Edward gripped me from behind, fingers tight again on the tops of my arms.
Even Carlisle and Esme moved to get Emmett’s and Jasper’s flanks, while Rosalie
backed to the door, her arms clutching at Renesmee. Jacob moved, too, keeping
his protective stance in front of them.
Alice was the only one who held her place.
“Oh, give her some credit,” she chided them. “She wasn’t going to do anything.
You’d want a closer look, too.”
Alice was right. I was in control of myself. I’d been braced for anything—for a
scent as impossibly insistent as the human smell in the woods. The temptation
here was really not comparable. Renesmee’s fragrance was perfectly balanced
right on the line between the scent of the most beautiful perfume and the scent of
the most delicious food. There was enough of the sweet vampire smell to keep the
human part from being overwhelming.
I could handle it. I was sure.
“I’m okay,” I promised, patting Edward’s hand on my arm. Then I hesitated and
added, “Keep close, though, just in case.”
Jasper’s eyes were tight, focused. I knew he was taking in my emotional climate,
and I worked on settling into a steady calm. I felt Edward free my arms as he read
Jasper’s assessment. But, though Jasper was getting it firsthand, he didn’t seem
as certain.
When she heard my voice, the too-aware child struggled in Rosalie’s arms,
reaching toward me. Somehow, her expression managed to look impatient.
“Jazz, Em, let us through. Bella’s got this.”
“Edward, the risk—,” Jasper said.
“Minimal. Listen, Jasper—on the hunt she caught the scent of some hikers who
were in the wrong place at the wrong time. . . .”
I heard Carlisle suck in a shocked breath. Esme’s face was suddenly full of
concern mingled with compassion. Jasper’s eyes widened, but he nodded just a
tiny bit, as if Edward’s words answered some question in his head. Jacob’s mouth
screwed up into a disgusted grimace. Emmett shrugged. Rosalie seemed even less
concerned than Emmett as she tried to hold on to the struggling child in her
arms.
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Alice’s expression told me that she was not fooled. Her narrowed eyes, focused
with burning intensity on my borrowed shirt, seemed more worried about what
I’d done to my dress than anything else.
“Edward!” Carlisle chastened. “How could you be so irresponsible?”
“I know, Carlisle, I know. I was just plain stupid. I should have taken the time to
make sure we were in a safe zone before I set her loose.”
“Edward,” I mumbled, embarrassed by the way they stared at me. It was like they
were trying to see a brighter red in my eyes.
“He’s absolutely right to rebuke me, Bella,” Edward said with a grin. “I made a
huge mistake. The fact that you are stronger than anyone I’ve ever known doesn’t
change that.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Tasteful joke, Edward.”
“I wasn’t making a joke. I was explaining to Jasper why I know Bella can handle
this. It’s not my fault everyone jumped to conclusions.”
“Wait,” Jasper gasped. “She didn’t hunt the humans?”
“She started to,” Edward said, clearly enjoying himself. My teeth ground together.
“She was entirely focused on the hunt.”
“What happened?” Carlisle interjected. His eyes were suddenly bright, an amazed
smile beginning to form on his face. It reminded me of before, when he’d wanted
the details on my transformation experience. The thrill of new information.
Edward leaned toward him, animated. “She heard me behind her and reacted
defensively. As soon as my pursuit broke into her concentration, she snapped
right out of it. I’ve never seen anything to equal her. She realized at once what
was happening, and then… she held her breath and ran away.”
“Whoa,” Emmett murmured. “Seriously?”
“He’s not telling it right,” I muttered, more embarrassed than before. “He left out
the part where I growled at him.”
“Did ya get in a couple of good swipes?” Emmett asked eagerly.
“No! Of course not.”
“No, not really? You really didn’t attack him?”
“Emmett!” I protested.
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“Aw, what a waste,” Emmett groaned. “And here you’re probably the one person
who could take him—since he can’t get in your head to cheat—and you had a
perfect excuse, too.” He sighed. “I’ve been dying to see how he’d do without that
advantage.”
I glared at him frostily. “I would never.”
Jasper’s frown caught my attention; he seemed even more disturbed than before.
Edward touched his fist lightly to Jasper’s shoulder in a mock punch. “You see
what I mean?”
“It’s not natural,” Jasper muttered.
“She could have turned on you—she’s only hours old!” Esme scolded, putting her
hand against her heart. “Oh, we should have gone with you.”
I wasn’t paying so much attention, now that Edward was past the punch line of
his joke. I was staring at the gorgeous child by the door, who was still staring at
me. Her little dimpled hands reached out toward me like she knew exactly who I
was. Automatically, my hand lifted to mimic hers.
“Edward,” I said, leaning around Jasper to see her better. “Please?”
Jasper’s teeth were set; he didn’t move.
“Jazz, this isn’t anything you’ve seen before,” Alice said quietly. “Trust me.”
Their eyes met for a short second, and then Jasper nodded. He moved out of my
way, but put one hand on my shoulder and moved with me as I walked slowly
forward.
I thought about every step before I took it, analyzing my mood, the burn in my
throat, the position of the others around me. How strong I felt versus how well
they would be able to contain me. It was a slow procession.
And then the child in Rosalie’s arms, struggling and reaching all this time while
her expression got more and more irritated, let out a high, ringing wail. Everyone
reacted as if—like me—they’d never heard her voice before.
They swarmed around her in a second, leaving me standing alone, frozen in
place. The sound of Renesmee’s cry pierced right through me, spearing me to the
floor. My eyes pricked in the strangest way, like they wanted to tear.
It seemed like everyone had a hand on her, patting and soothing. Everyone but
me.
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“What’s the matter? Is she hurt? What happened?”
It was Jacob’s voice that was loudest, that raised anxiously above the others. I
watched in shock as he reached for Renesmee, and then in utter horror as Rosalie
surrendered her to him without a fight.
“No, she’s fine,” Rosalie reassured him.
Rosalie was reassuring Jacob?
Renesmee went to Jacob willingly enough, pushing her tiny hand against his
cheek and then squirming around to stretch toward me again.
“See?” Rosalie told him. “She just wants Bella.”
“She wants me?” I whispered.
Renesmee’s eyes—my eyes—stared impatiently at me.
Edward darted back to my side. He put his hands lightly on my arms and urged
me forward.
“She’s been waiting for you for almost three days,” he told me.
We were only a few feet away from her now. Bursts of heat seemed to tremble out
from her to touch me.
Or maybe it was Jacob who was trembling. I saw his hands shaking as I got
closer. And yet, despite his obvious anxiety, his face was more serene than I had
seen it in a long time.
“Jake—I’m fine,” I told him. It made me panicky to see Renesmee in his shaking
hands, but I worked to keep myself in control.
He frowned at me, eyes tight, like he was just as panicky at the thought of
Renesmee in my arms.
Renesmee whimpered eagerly and stretched, her little hands grasping into fists
again and again.
Something in me clicked into place at that moment. The sound of her cry, the
familiarity of her eyes, the way she seemed even more impatient than I did for
this reunion—all of it wove together into the most natural of patterns as she
clutched the air between us. Suddenly, she was absolutely real, and of course I
knew her. It was perfectly ordinary that I should take that last easy step and reach
for her, putting my hands exactly where they would fit best as I pulled her gently
toward me.
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Jacob let his long arms stretch so that I could cradle her, but he didn’t let go. He
shuddered a little when our skin touched. His skin, always so warm to me before,
felt like an open flame to me now. It was almost the same temperature as
Renesmee’s. Perhaps one or two degrees difference.
Renesmee seemed oblivious to the coolness of my skin, or at least very used to it.
She looked up and smiled at me again, showing her square little teeth and two
dimples. Then, very deliberately, she reached for my face.
The moment she did this, all the hands on me tightened, anticipating my
reaction. I barely noticed.
I was gasping, stunned and frightened by the strange, alarming image that filled
my mind. It felt like a very strong memory—I could still see through my eyes
while I watched it in my head—but it was completely unfamiliar. I stared through
it to Renesmee’s expectant expression, trying to understand what was happening,
struggling desperately to hold on to my calm.
Besides being shocking and unfamiliar, the image was also wrong somehow—I
almost recognized my own face in it, my old face, but it was off, backward. I
grasped quickly that I was seeing my face as others saw it, rather than flipped in a
reflection.
My memory face was twisted, ravaged, covered in sweat and blood. Despite this,
my expression in the vision became an adoring smile; my brown eyes glowed over
their deep circles. The image enlarged, my face came closer to the unseen vantage
point, and then abruptly vanished.
Renesmee’s hand dropped from my cheek. She smiled wider, dimpling again.
It was totally silent in the room but for the heartbeats. No one but Jacob and
Renesmee was so much as breathing. The silence stretched on; it seemed like
they were waiting for me to say something.
“What… was… that?” I managed to choke out.
“What did you see?” Rosalie asked curiously, leaning around Jacob, who seemed
very much in the way and out of place at the moment. “What did she show you?”
“She showed me that?” I whispered.
“I told you it was hard to explain,” Edward murmured in my ear. “But effective as
means of communications go.”
“What was it?” Jacob asked.
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I blinked quickly several times. “Um. Me. I think. But I looked terrible.”
“It was the only memory she had of you,” Edward explained. It was obvious he’d
seen what she was showing me as she thought of it. He was still cringing, his
voice rough from reliving the memory. “She’s letting you know that she’s made
the connection, that she knows who you are.”
“But how did she do that?”
Renesmee seemed unconcerned with my boggling eyes. She was smiling slightly
and pulling on a lock of my hair.
“How do I hear thoughts? How does Alice see the future?” Edward asked
rhetorically, and then shrugged. “She’s gifted.”
“It’s an interesting twist,” Carlisle said to Edward. “Like she’s doing the exact
opposite of what you can.”
“Interesting,” Edward agreed. “I wonder. . . .”
I knew they were speculating away, but I didn’t care. I was staring at the most
beautiful face in the world. She was hot in my arms, reminding me of the moment
when the blackness had almost won, when there was nothing in the world left to
hold on to. Nothing strong enough to pull me through the crushing darkness. The
moment when I’d thought of Renesmee and found something I would never let go
of.
“I remember you, too,” I told her quietly.
It seemed very natural to lean in and press my lips to her forehead. She smelled
wonderful. The scent of her skin set my throat burning, but it was easy to ignore.
It didn’t strip the joy from the moment. Renesmee was real and I knew her. She
was the same one I’d fought for from the beginning. My little nudger, the one who
loved me from the inside, too. Half Edward, perfect and lovely. And half me—
which, surprisingly, made her better rather than detracting.
I’d been right all along. She was worth the fight.
“She’s fine,” Alice murmured, probably to Jasper. I could feel them hovering, not
trusting me.
“Haven’t we experimented enough for one day?” Jacob asked, his voice a slightly
higher pitch with stress. “Okay, Bella’s doing great, but let’s not push it.”
I glared at him with real irritation. Jasper shuffled uneasily next to me. We were
all crowded so close that every tiny movement seemed very big.
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“What is your problem, Jacob?” I demanded. I tugged lightly against his hold on
Renesmee, and he just stepped closer to me. He was pressed right up to me,
Renesmee touching both of our chests.
Edward hissed at him. “Just because I understand, it doesn’t mean I won’t throw
you out, Jacob. Bella’s doing extraordinarily well. Don’t ruin the moment for
her.”
“I’ll help him toss you, dog,” Rosalie promised, her voice seething. “I owe you a
good kick in the gut.” Obviously, there was no change in that relationship, unless
it had gotten worse.
I glared at Jacob’s anxious half-angry expression. His eyes were locked on
Renesmee’s face. With everyone pressed together, he had to be touching at least
six different vampires at the moment, and it didn’t even seem to bug him.
Would he really go through all this just to protect me from myself? What could
have happened during my transformation—my alteration into something he
hated—that would soften him so much toward the reason for its necessity?
I puzzled over it, watching him stare at my daughter. Staring at her like… like he
was a blind man seeing the sun for the very first time.
“No!” I gasped.
Jasper’s teeth came together and Edward’s arms wrapped around my chest like
constricting boas. Jacob had Renesmee out of my arms in the same second, and I
did not try to hold on to her. Because I felt it coming—the snap that they’d all
been waiting for.
“Rose,” I said through my teeth, very slowly and precisely. “Take Renesmee.”
Rosalie held her hands out, and Jacob handed my daughter to her at once. Both
of them backed away from me.
“Edward, I don’t want to hurt you, so please let go of me.”
He hesitated.
“Go stand in front of Renesmee,” I suggested.
He deliberated, and then let me go.
I leaned into my hunting crouch and took two slow steps forward toward Jacob.
“You didn’t,” I snarled at him.
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He backed away, palms up, trying to reason with me. “You know it’s not
something I can control.”
“You stupid mutt! How could you? My baby!”
He backed out the front door now as I stalked him, half-running backward down
the stairs. “It wasn’t my idea, Bella!”
“I’ve held her all of one time, and already you think you have some moronic wolfy
claim to her? She’s mine.”
“I can share,” he said pleadingly as he retreated across the lawn.
“Pay up,” I heard Emmett say behind me. A small part of my brain wondered who
had bet against this outcome. I didn’t waste much attention on it. I was too
furious.
“How dare you imprint on my baby? Have you lost your mind?”
“It was involuntary!” he insisted, backing into the trees.
Then he wasn’t alone. The two huge wolves reappeared, flanking him on either
side. Leah snapped at me.
A fearsome snarl ripped through my teeth back at her. The sound disturbed me,
but not enough to stop my advance.
“Bella, would you try to listen for just a second? Please?” Jacob begged. “Leah,
back off,” he added.
Leah curled her lip at me and didn’t move.
“Why should I listen?” I hissed. Fury reigned in my head. It clouded everything
else out.
“Because you’re the one who told me this. Do you remember? You said we
belonged in each other’s lives, right? That we were family. You said that was how
you and I were supposed to be. So… now we are. It’s what you wanted.”
I glared ferociously. I did dimly remember those words. But my new quick brain
was two steps ahead of his nonsense.
“You think you’ll be part of my family as my son-in-law!” I screeched. My bell
voice ripped through two octaves and still came out sounding like music.
Emmett laughed.
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“Stop her, Edward,” Esme murmured. “She’ll be unhappy if she hurts him.”
But I felt no pursuit behind me.
“No!” Jacob was insisting at the same time. “How can you even look at it that
way? She’s just a baby, for crying out loud!”
“That’s my point!” I yelled.
“You know I don’t think of her that way! Do you think Edward would have let me
live this long if I did? All I want is for her to be safe and happy—is that so bad? So
different from what you want?” He was shouting right back at me.
Beyond words, I shrieked a growl at him.
“Amazing, isn’t she?” I heard Edward murmur.
“She hasn’t gone for his throat even once,” Carlisle agreed, sounding stunned.
“Fine, you win this one,” Emmett said grudgingly.
“You’re going to stay away from her,” I hissed up at Jacob.
“I can’t do that!”
Through my teeth: “Try. Starting now.”
“It’s not possible. Do you remember how much you wanted me around three days
ago? How hard it was to be apart from each other? That’s gone for you now, isn’t
it?”
I glared, not sure what he was implying.
“That was her,” he told me. “From the very beginning. We had to be together,
even then.”
I remembered, and then I understood; a tiny part of me was relieved to have the
madness explained. But that relief somehow only made me angrier. Was he
expecting that to be enough for me? That one little clarification would make me
okay with this?
“Run away while you still can,” I threatened.
“C’mon, Bells! Nessie likes me, too,” he insisted.
I froze. My breathing stopped. Behind me, I heard the lack of sound that was
their anxious reaction.
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“What… did you call her?”
Jacob took a step farther back, managing to look sheepish. “Well,” he mumbled,
“that name you came up with is kind of a mouthful and—”
“You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?” I screeched.
And then I lunged for his throat.
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23. MEMORIES
“I’m so sorry, Seth. I should have been closer.”
Edward was still apologizing, and I didn’t think that was either fair or
appropriate. After all, Edward hadn’t completely and inexcusably lost control of
his temper. Edward hadn’t tried to rip Jacob’s head off—Jacob, who wouldn’t
even phase to protect himself—and then accidentally broken Seth’s shoulder and
collarbone when he jumped in between. Edward hadn’t almost killed his best
friend.
Not that the best friend didn’t have a few things to answer for, but, obviously,
nothing Jacob had done could have mitigated my behavior.
So shouldn’t I have been the one apologizing? I tried again.
“Seth, I—”
“Don’t worry about it, Bella, I’m totally fine,” Seth said at the same time that
Edward said, “Bella, love, no one is judging you. You’re doing so well.”
They hadn’t let me finish a sentence yet.
It only made it worse that Edward was having a difficult time keeping the smile
off his face. I knew that Jacob didn’t deserve my overreaction, but Edward
seemed to find something satisfying in it. Maybe he was just wishing that he had
the excuse of being a newborn so that he could do something physical about his
irritation with Jacob, too.
I tried to erase the anger from my system entirely, but it was hard, knowing that
Jacob was outside with Renesmee right now. Keeping her safe from me, the
crazed newborn.
Carlisle secured another piece of the brace to Seth’s arm, and Seth winced.
“Sorry, sorry!” I mumbled, knowing I’d never get a fully articulated apology out.
“Don’t freak, Bella,” Seth said, patting my knee with his good hand while Edward
rubbed my arm from the other side.
Seth seemed to feel no aversion to having me sit beside him on the sofa as Carlisle
treated him. “I’ll be back to normal in half an hour,” he continued, still patting my
knee as if oblivious to the cold, hard texture of it. “Anyone would have done the
same, what with Jake and Ness—” He broke off mid-word and changed the
subject quickly. “I mean, at least you didn’t bite me or anything. That would’ve
sucked.”
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I buried my face in my hands and shuddered at the thought, at the very real
possibility. It could have happened so easily. And werewolves didn’t react to
vampire venom the same way humans did, they’d told me only now. It was poison
to them.
“I’m a bad person.”
“Of course you aren’t. I should have—,” Edward started.
“Stop that,” I sighed. I didn’t want him taking the blame for this the way he
always took everything on himself.
“Lucky thing Ness—Renesmee’s not venomous,” Seth said after a second of
awkward silence. “’Cause she bites Jake all the time.”
My hands dropped. “She does?”
“Sure. Whenever he and Rose don’t get dinner in her mouth fast enough. Rose
thinks it’s pretty hilarious.”
I stared at him, shocked, and also feeling guilty, because I had to admit that this
pleased me a teensy bit in a petulant way.
Of course, I already knew that Renesmee wasn’t venomous. I was the first person
she’d bitten. I didn’t make this observation aloud, as I was feigning memory loss
on those recent events.
“Well, Seth,” Carlisle said, straightening up and stepping away from us. “I think
that’s as much as I can do. Try to not move for, oh, a few hours, I guess.” Carlisle
chuckled. “I wish treating humans were this instantaneously gratifying.” He
rested his hand for a moment on Seth’s black hair. “Stay still,” he ordered, and
then he disappeared upstairs. I heard his office door close, and I wondered if
they’d already removed the evidence of my time there.
“I can probably manage sitting still for a while,” Seth agreed after Carlisle was
already gone, and then he yawned hugely. Carefully, making sure not to tweak his
shoulder, Seth leaned his head against the sofa’s back and closed his eyes.
Seconds later, his mouth fell slack.
I frowned at his peaceful face for another minute. Like Jacob, Seth seemed to
have the gift of falling asleep at will. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to apologize
again for a while, I got up; the motion didn’t jostle the couch in the slightest.
Everything physical was so easy. But the rest…
Edward followed me to the back windows and took my hand.
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Leah was pacing along the river, stopping every now and then to look at the
house. It was easy to tell when she was looking for her brother and when she was
looking for me. She alternated between anxious glances and murderous glares.
I could hear Jacob and Rosalie outside on the front steps bickering quietly over
whose turn it was to feed Renesmee. Their relationship was as antagonistic as
ever; the only thing they agreed on now was that I should be kept away from my
baby until I was one hundred percent recovered from my temper tantrum.
Edward had disputed their verdict, but I’d let it go. I wanted to be sure, too. I was
worried, though, that my one hundred percent sure and their one hundred
percent sure might be very different things.
Other than their squabbling, Seth’s slow breathing, and Leah’s annoyed panting,
it was very quiet. Emmett, Alice, and Esme were hunting. Jasper had stayed
behind to watch me. He stood unobtrusively behind the newel post now, trying
not to be obnoxious about it.
I took advantage of the calm to think of all the things Edward and Seth had told
me while Carlisle splinted Seth’s arm. I’d missed a whole lot while I was burning,
and this was the first real chance to catch up.
The main thing was the end of the feud with Sam’s pack—which was why the
others felt safe to come and go as they pleased again. The truce was stronger than
ever. Or more binding, depending on your viewpoint, I imagined.
Binding, because the most absolute of all the pack’s laws was that no wolf ever kill
the object of another wolf’s imprinting. The pain of such a thing would be
intolerable for the whole pack. The fault, whether intended or accidental, could
not be forgiven; the wolves involved would fight to the death—there was no other
option. It had happened long ago, Seth told me, but only accidentally. No wolf
would ever intentionally destroy a brother that way.
So Renesmee was untouchable because of the way Jacob now felt about her. I
tried to concentrate on the relief of this fact rather than the chagrin, but it wasn’t
easy. My mind had enough room to feel both emotions intensely at the same
time.
And Sam couldn’t get mad about my transformation, either, because Jacob—
speaking as the rightful Alpha—had allowed it. It rankled to realize over and over
again how much I owed Jacob when I just wanted to be mad at him.
I deliberately redirected my thoughts in order to control my emotions. I
considered another interesting phenomenon; though the silence between the
separate packs continued, Jacob and Sam had discovered that Alphas could speak
to each other while in their wolf form. It wasn’t the same as before; they couldn’t
hear every thought the way they had prior to the split. It was more like speaking
aloud, Seth had said. Sam could only hear the thoughts Jacob wanted to share,
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and vice versa. They found they could communicate over distance, too, now that
they were talking to each other again.
They hadn’t found all this out until Jacob had gone alone—over Seth’s and Leah’s
objections—to explain to Sam about Renesmee; it was the only time he’d left
Renesmee since first laying eyes on her.
Once Sam had understood how absolutely everything had changed, he’d come
back with Jacob to talk to Carlisle. They’d spoken in human form (Edward had
refused to leave my side to translate), and the treaty had been renewed. The
friendly feeling of the relationship, however, might never be the same.
One big worry down.
But there was another that, though not as physically dangerous as an angry wolf
pack, still seemed more urgent to me.
Charlie.
He’d spoken to Esme earlier this morning, but that hadn’t kept him from calling
again, twice, just a few minutes ago while Carlisle treated Seth. Carlisle and
Edward had let the phone ring.
What would be the right thing to tell him? Were the Cullens right? Was telling
him that I’d died the best, the kindest way? Would I be able to lie still in a coffin
while he and my mother cried over me?
It didn’t seem right to me. But putting Charlie or Renée in danger of the Volturi’s
obsession with secrecy was clearly out of the question.
There was still my idea—let Charlie see me, when I was ready for that, and let him
make his own wrong assumptions. Technically, the vampire rules would remain
unbroken. Wouldn’t it be better for Charlie if he knew that I was alive—sort of—
and happy? Even if I was strange and different and probably frightening to him?
My eyes, in particular, were much too frightening right now. How long before my
self-control and my eye color were ready for Charlie?
“What’s the matter, Bella?” Jasper asked quietly, reading my growing tension.
“No one is angry with you”—a low snarl from the riverside contradicted him, but
he ignored it—“or even surprised, really. Well, I suppose we are surprised.
Surprised that you were able to snap out of it so quickly. You did well. Better than
anyone expects of you.”
While he was speaking, the room became very calm. Seth’s breathing slipped into
a low snore. I felt more peaceful, but I didn’t forget my anxieties.
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“I was thinking about Charlie, actually.”
Out front, the bickering cut off.
“Ah,” Jasper murmured.
“We really have to leave, don’t we?” I asked. “For a while, at the very least.
Pretend we’re in Atlanta or something.”
I could feel Edward’s gaze locked on my face, but I looked at Jasper. He was the
one who answered me in a grave tone.
“Yes. It’s the only way to protect your father.”
I brooded for a moment. “I’m going to miss him so much. I’ll miss everyone
here.”
Jacob, I thought, despite myself. Though that yearning was both vanished and
defined—and I was vastly relieved that it was—he was still my friend. Someone
who knew the real me and accepted her. Even as a monster.
I thought about what Jacob had said, pleading with me before I’d attacked him.
You said we belonged in each other’s lives, right? That we were family. You said
that was how you and I were supposed to be. So… now we are. It’s what you
wanted.
But it didn’t feel like how I’d wanted it. Not exactly. I remembered further back,
to the fuzzy, weak memories of my human life. Back to the very hardest part to
remember—the time without Edward, a time so dark I’d tried to bury it in my
head. I couldn’t get the words exactly right; I only remembered wishing that
Jacob were my brother so that we could love each other without any confusion or
pain. Family. But I’d never factored a daughter into the equation.
I remembered a little later—one of the many times that I’d told Jacob goodbye—
wondering aloud who he would end up with, who would make his life right after
what I’d done to it. I had said something about how whoever she was, she
wouldn’t be good enough for him.
I snorted, and Edward raised one eyebrow questioningly. I just shook my head at
him.
But as much as I might miss my friend, I knew there was a bigger problem. Had
Sam or Jared or Quil ever gone a whole day without seeing the objects of their
fixations, Emily, Kim, and Claire? Could they? What would the separation from
Renesmee do to Jacob? Would it cause him pain?
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There was still enough petty ire in my system to make me glad, not for his pain,
but for the idea of having Renesmee away from him. How was I supposed to deal
with having her belong to Jacob when she only barely seemed to belong to me?
The sound of movement on the front porch interrupted my thoughts. I heard
them get up, and then they were through the door. At exactly the same time,
Carlisle came down the stairs with his hands full of odd things—a measuring tape,
a scale. Jasper darted to my side. As if there was some signal I’d missed, even
Leah sat down outside and stared through the window with an expression like
she was expecting something that was both familiar and also totally
uninteresting.
“Must be six,” Edward said.
“So?” I asked, my eyes locked on Rosalie, Jacob, and Renesmee. They stood in the
doorway, Renesmee in Rosalie’s arms. Rose looked wary. Jacob looked troubled.
Renesmee looked beautiful and impatient.
“Time to measure Ness—er, Renesmee,” Carlisle explained.
“Oh. You do this every day?”
“Four times a day,” Carlisle corrected absently as he motioned the others toward
the couch. I thought I saw Renesmee sigh.
“Four times? Every day? Why?”
“She’s still growing quickly,” Edward murmured to me, his voice quiet and
strained. He squeezed my hand, and his other arm wrapped securely around my
waist, almost as if he needed the support.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Renesmee to check his expression.
She looked perfect, absolutely healthy. Her skin glowed like backlit alabaster; the
color in her cheeks was rose petals against it. There couldn’t be anything wrong
with such radiant beauty. Surely there could be nothing more dangerous in her
life than her mother. Could there?
The difference between the child I’d given birth to and the one I’d met again an
hour ago would have been obvious to anyone. The difference between Renesmee
an hour ago and Renesmee now was subtler. Human eyes never would have
detected it. But it was there.
Her body was slightly longer. Just a little bit slimmer. Her face wasn’t quite as
round; it was more oval by one minute degree. Her ringlets hung a sixteenth of an
inch lower down her shoulders. She stretched out helpfully in Rosalie’s arms
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while Carlisle ran the tape measure down the length of her and then used it to
circle her head. He took no notes; perfect recall.
I was aware that Jacob’s arms were crossed as tightly over his chest as Edward’s
arms were locked around me. His heavy brows were mashed together into one
line over his deep-set eyes.
She had matured from a single cell to a normal-sized baby in the course of a few
weeks. She looked well on her way to being a toddler just days after her birth. If
this rate of growth held…
My vampire mind had no trouble with the math.
“What do we do?” I whispered, horrified.
Edward’s arms tightened. He understood exactly what I was asking. “I don’t
know.”
“It’s slowing,” Jacob muttered through his teeth.
“We’ll need several more days of measurements to track the trend, Jacob. I can’t
make any promises.”
“Yesterday she grew two inches. Today it’s less.”
“By a thirty-second of an inch, if my measurements are perfect,” Carlisle said
quietly.
“Be perfect, Doc,” Jacob said, making the words almost threatening. Rosalie
stiffened.
“You know I’ll do my best,” Carlisle assured him.
Jacob sighed. “Guess that’s all I can ask.”
I felt irritated again, like Jacob was stealing my lines—and delivering them all
wrong.
Renesmee seemed irritated, too. She started to squirm and then reached her
hand imperiously toward Rosalie. Rosalie leaned forward so that Renesmee could
touch her face. After a second, Rose sighed.
“What does she want?” Jacob demanded, taking my line again.
“Bella, of course,” Rosalie told him, and her words made my insides feel a little
warmer. Then she looked at me. “How are you?”
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“Worried,” I admitted, and Edward squeezed me.
“We all are. But that’s not what I meant.”
“I’m in control,” I promised. Thirstiness was way down the list right now.
Besides, Renesmee smelled good in a very non-food way.
Jacob bit his lip but made no move to stop Rosalie as she offered Renesmee to
me. Jasper and Edward hovered but allowed it. I could see how tense Rose was,
and I wondered how the room felt to Jasper right now. Or was he focusing so
hard on me that he couldn’t feel the others?
Renesmee reached for me as I reached for her, a blinding smile lighting her face.
She fit so easily in my arms, like they’d been shaped just for her. Immediately,
she put her hot little hand against my cheek.
Though I was prepared, it still made me gasp to see the memory like a vision in
my head. So bright and colorful but also completely transparent.
She was remembering me charging Jacob across the front lawn, remembering
Seth leaping between us. She’d seen and heard it all with perfect clarity. It didn’t
look like me, this graceful predator leaping at her prey like an arrow arcing from
a bow. It had to be someone else. That made me feel a very small bit less guilty as
Jacob stood there defenselessly with his hands raised in front of him. His hands
did not tremble.
Edward chuckled, watching Renesmee’s thoughts with me. And then we both
winced as we heard the crack of Seth’s bones.
Renesmee smiled her brilliant smile, and her memory eyes did not leave Jacob
through all the following mess. I tasted a new flavor to the memory—not exactly
protective, more possessive—as she watched Jacob. I got the distinct impression
that she was glad Seth had put himself in front of my spring. She didn’t want
Jacob hurt. He was hers.
“Oh, wonderful,” I groaned. “Perfect.”
“It’s just because he tastes better than the rest of us,” Edward assured me, voice
stiff with his own annoyance.
“I told you she likes me, too,” Jacob teased from across the room, his eyes on
Renesmee. His joking was halfhearted; the tense angle of his eyebrows had not
relaxed.
Renesmee patted my face impatiently, demanding my attention. Another
memory: Rosalie pulling a brush gently through each of her curls. It felt nice.
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Carlisle and his tape measure, knowing she had to stretch and be still. It was not
interesting to her.
“It looks like she’s going to give you a rundown of everything you missed,”
Edward commented in my ear.
My nose wrinkled as she dumped the next one on me. The smell coming from a
strange metal cup—hard enough not to be bitten through easily—sent a flash
burn through my throat. Ouch.
And then Renesmee was out of my arms, which were pinned behind my back. I
didn’t struggle with Jasper; I just looked at Edward’s frightened face.
“What did I do?”
Edward looked at Jasper behind me, and then at me again.
“But she was remembering being thirsty,” Edward muttered, his forehead
pressing into lines. “She was remembering the taste of human blood.”
Jasper’s arms pulled mine tighter together. Part of my head noted that this wasn’t
particularly uncomfortable, let alone painful, as it would have been to a human. It
was just annoying. I was sure I could break his hold, but I didn’t fight it.
“Yes,” I agreed. “And?”
Edward frowned at me for a second more, and then his expression loosened. He
laughed once. “And nothing at all, it seems. The overreaction is mine this time.
Jazz, let her go.”
The binding hands disappeared. I reached out for Renesmee as soon as I was free.
Edward handed her to me without hesitation.
“I can’t understand,” Jasper said. “I can’t bear this.”
I watched in surprise as Jasper strode out the back door. Leah moved to give him
a wide margin of space as he paced to the river and then launched himself over it
in one bound.
Renesmee touched my neck, repeating the scene of departure right back, like an
instant replay. I could feel the question in her thought, an echo of mine.
I was already over the shock of her odd little gift. It seemed an entirely natural
part of her, almost to be expected. Maybe now that I was part of the supernatural
myself, I would never be a skeptic again.
But what was wrong with Jasper?
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“He’ll be back,” Edward said, whether to me or Renesmee, I wasn’t sure. “He just
needs a moment alone to readjust his perspective on life.” There was a grin
threatening at the corners of his mouth.
Another human memory—Edward telling me that Jasper would feel better about
himself if I “had a hard time adjusting” to being a vampire. This was in the
context of a discussion about how many people I would kill my first newborn
year.
“Is he mad at me?” I asked quietly.
Edward’s eyes widened. “No. Why would he be?”
“What’s the matter with him, then?”
“He’s upset with himself, not you, Bella. He’s worrying about… self-fulfilling
prophecy, I suppose you could say.”
“How so?” Carlisle asked before I could.
“He’s wondering if the newborn madness is really as difficult as we’ve always
thought, or if, with the right focus and attitude, anyone could do as well as Bella.
Even now—perhaps he only has such difficulty because he believes it’s natural
and unavoidable. Maybe if he expected more of himself, he would rise to those
expectations. You’re making him question a lot of deep-rooted assumptions,
Bella.”
“But that’s unfair,” Carlisle said. “Everyone is different; everyone has their own
challenges. Perhaps what Bella is doing goes beyond the natural. Maybe this is
her gift, so to speak.”
I froze with surprise. Renesmee felt the change, and touched me. She
remembered the last second of time and wondered why.
“That’s an interesting theory, and quite plausible,” Edward said.
For a tiny space, I was disappointed. What? No magic visions, no formidable
offensive abilities like, oh, shooting lightning bolts from my eyes or something?
Nothing helpful or cool at all?
And then I realized what that might mean, if my “superpower” was no more than
exceptional self-control.
For one thing, at least I had a gift. It could have been nothing.
But, much more than that, if Edward was right, then I could skip right over the
part I’d feared the very most.
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What if I didn’t have to be a newborn? Not in the crazed killing-machine sense,
anyway. What if I could fit right in with the Cullens from my first day? What if we
didn’t have to hide out somewhere remote for a year while I “grew up”? What if,
like Carlisle, I never killed a single person? What if I could be a good vampire
right away?
I could see Charlie.
I sighed as soon as reality filtered through hope. I couldn’t see Charlie right away.
The eyes, the voice, the perfected face. What could I possibly say to him; how
could I even begin? I was furtively glad that I had some excuses for putting things
off for a while; as much as I wanted to find some way to keep Charlie in my life, I
was terrified of that first meeting. Seeing his eyes pop as he took in my new face,
my new skin. Knowing that he was frightened. Wondering what dark explanation
would form in his head.
I was chicken enough to wait for a year while my eyes cooled. And here I’d
thought I would be so fearless when I was indestructible.
“Have you ever seen an equivalent to self-control as a talent?” Edward asked
Carlisle. “Do you really think that’s a gift, or just a product of all her
preparation?”
Carlisle shrugged. “It’s slightly similar to what Siobhan has always been able to
do, though she wouldn’t call it a gift.”
“Siobhan, your friend in that Irish coven?” Rosalie asked. “I wasn’t aware that she
did anything special. I thought it was Maggie who was talented in that bunch.”
“Yes, Siobhan thinks the same. But she has this way of deciding her goals and
then almost… willing them into reality. She considers it good planning, but I’ve
always wondered if it was something more. When she included Maggie, for
instance. Liam was very territorial, but Siobhan wanted it to work out, and so it
did.”
Edward, Carlisle, and Rosalie settled into chairs as they continued with the
discussion. Jacob sat next to Seth protectively, looking bored. From the way his
eyelids drooped, I was sure he’d be unconscious momentarily.
I listened, but my attention was divided. Renesmee was still telling me about her
day. I held her by the window wall, my arms rocking her automatically as we
stared into each other’s eyes.
I realized that the others had no reason for sitting down. I was perfectly
comfortable standing. It was just as restful as stretching out on a bed would be. I
knew I would be able to stand like this for a week without moving and I would
feel just as relaxed at the end of the seven days as I did at the beginning.
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They must sit out of habit. Humans would notice someone standing for hours
without ever shifting her weight to a different foot. Even now, I saw Rosalie brush
her fingers against her hair and Carlisle cross his legs. Little motions to keep from
being too still, too much a vampire. I would have to pay attention to what they
did and start practicing.
I rolled my weight back to my left leg. It felt kind of silly.
Maybe they were just trying to give me a little alone time with my baby—as alone
as was safe.
Renesmee told me about every minute happening of the day, and I got the feeling
from the tenor of her little stories that she wanted me to know her every bit as
much I wanted the same thing. It worried her that I had missed things—like the
sparrows that had hopped closer and closer when Jacob had held her, both of
them very still beside one of the big hemlocks; the birds wouldn’t come close to
Rosalie. Or the outrageously icky white stuff—baby formula—that Carlisle had
put in her cup; it smelled like sour dirt. Or the song Edward had crooned to her
that was so perfect Renesmee played it for me twice; I was surprised that I was in
the background of that memory, perfectly motionless but looking fairly battered
still. I shuddered, remembering that time from my own perspective. The hideous
fire…
After almost an hour—the others were still deeply absorbed in their discussion,
Seth and Jacob snoring in harmony on the couch—Renesmee’s memory stories
began to slow. They got slightly blurry around the edges and drifted out of focus
before they came to their conclusions. I was about to interrupt Edward in a
panic—was there something wrong with her?—when her eyelids fluttered and
closed. She yawned, her plump pink lips stretching into a round O, and her eyes
never reopened.
Her hand fell away from my face as she drifted to sleep—the backs of her eyelids
were the pale lavender color of thin clouds before the sunrise. Careful not to
disturb her, I lifted that hand back to my skin and held it there curiously. At first
there was nothing, and then, after a few minutes, a flickering of colors like a
handful of butterflies were scattering from her thoughts.
Mesmerized, I watched her dreams. There was no sense to it. Just colors and
shapes and faces. I was pleased by how often my face—both of my faces, hideous
human and glorious immortal—cropped up in her unconscious thoughts. More
than Edward or Rosalie. I was neck and neck with Jacob; I tried not to let that get
to me.
For the first time, I understood how Edward had been able to watch me sleep
night after boring night, just to hear me talk in my sleep. I could watch Renesmee
dream forever.
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The change in Edward’s tone caught my attention when he said, “Finally,” and
turned to gaze out the window. It was deep, purply night outside, but I could see
just as far as before. Nothing was hidden in the darkness; everything had just
changed colors.
Leah, still glowering, got up and slunk into the brush just as Alice came into view
on the other side of the river. Alice swung back and forth from a branch like a
trapeze artist, toes touching hands, before throwing her body into a graceful flat
spin over the river. Esme made a more traditional leap, while Emmett charged
right through the water, splashing water so far that splatters hit the back
windows. To my surprise, Jasper followed after, his own efficient leap seeming
understated, even subtle, after the others.
The huge grin stretching Alice’s face was familiar in a dim, odd way. Everyone
was suddenly smiling at me—Esme sweet, Emmett excited, Rosalie a little
superior, Carlisle indulgent, and Edward expectant.
Alice skipped into the room ahead of everyone else, her hand stretched out in
front of her and impatience making a nearly visible aura around her. In her palm
was an everyday brass key with an oversized pink satin bow tied around it.
She held the key out for me, and I automatically gripped Renesmee more securely
in my right arm so that I could open my left. Alice dropped the key into it.
“Happy birthday!” she squealed.
I rolled my eyes. “No one starts counting on the actual day of birth,” I reminded
her. “Your first birthday is at the year mark, Alice.”
Her grin turned smug. “We’re not celebrating your vampire birthday. Yet. It’s
September thirteenth, Bella. Happy nineteenth birthday!”
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24. SURPRISE
“No. No way!” I shook my head fiercely and then shot a glance at the smug smile
on my seventeen-year-old husband’s face. “No, this doesn’t count. I stopped
aging three days ago. I am eighteen forever.”
“Whatever,” Alice said, dismissing my protest with a quick shrug. “We’re
celebrating anyway, so suck it up.”
I sighed. There was rarely a point to arguing with Alice.
Her grin got impossibly wider as she read the acquiescence in my eyes.
“Are you ready to open your present?” Alice sang.
“Presents,” Edward corrected, and he pulled another key—this one longer and
silver with a less gaudy blue bow—from his pocket.
I struggled to keep from rolling my eyes. I knew immediately what this key was
to—the “after car.” I wondered if I should feel excited. It seemed the vampire
conversion hadn’t given me any sudden interest in sports cars.
“Mine first,” Alice said, and then stuck her tongue out, foreseeing his answer.
“Mine is closer.”
“But look at how she’s dressed.” Alice’s words were almost a moan. “It’s been
killing me all day. That is clearly the priority.”
My eyebrows pulled together as I wondered how a key could get me into new
clothes. Had she gotten me a whole trunkful?
“I know—I’ll play you for it,” Alice suggested. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
Jasper chuckled and Edward sighed.
“Why you don’t you just tell me who wins?” Edward said wryly.
Alice beamed. “I do. Excellent.”
“It’s probably better that I wait for morning, anyway.” Edward smiled crookedly
at me and then nodded toward Jacob and Seth, who looked like they were
crashed for the night; I wonder how long they’d stayed up this time. “I think it
might be more fun if Jacob was awake for the big reveal, don’t you agree? So that
someone there is able to express the right level of enthusiasm?”
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I grinned back. He knew me well.
“Yay,” Alice sang. “Bella, give Ness—Renesmee to Rosalie.”
“Where does she usually sleep?”
Alice shrugged. “In Rose’s arms. Or Jacob’s. Or Esme’s. You get the picture. She
has never been set down in her entire life. She’s going to be the most spoiled halfvampire
in existence.”
Edward laughed while Rosalie took Renesmee expertly in her arms. “She is also
the most unspoiled half-vampire in existence,” Rosalie said. “The beauty of being
one of a kind.”
Rosalie grinned at me, and I was glad to see that the new comradeship between
us was still there in her smile. I hadn’t been entirely sure it would last after
Renesmee’s life was no longer tied to mine. But maybe we had fought together on
the same side long enough that we would always be friends now. I’d finally made
the same choice she would have if she’d been in my shoes. That seemed to have
washed away her resentment for all my other choices.
Alice shoved the beribboned key in my hand, then grabbed my elbow and steered
me toward the back door. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she trilled.
“Is it outside?”
“Sort of,” Alice said, pushing me forward.
“Enjoy your gift,” Rosalie said. “It’s from all of us. Esme especially.”
“Aren’t you coming, too?” I realized that no one had moved.
“We’ll give you a chance to appreciate it alone,” Rosalie said. “You can tell us
about it… later.”
Emmett guffawed. Something about his laugh made me feel like blushing, though
I wasn’t sure why.
I realized that lots of things about me—like truly hating surprises, and not liking
gifts in general much more—had not changed one bit. It was a relief and
revelation to discover how much of my essential core traits had come with me
into this new body.
I hadn’t expected to be myself. I smiled widely.
Alice tugged my elbow, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I followed her into the
purple night. Only Edward came with us.
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“There’s the enthusiasm I’m looking for,” Alice murmured approvingly. Then she
dropped my arm, made two lithe bounds, and leaped over the river.
“C’mon, Bella,” she called from the other side.
Edward jumped at the same time I did; it was every bit as fun as it had been this
afternoon. Maybe a little bit more fun because the night changed everything into
new, rich colors.
Alice took off with us on her heels, heading due north. It was easier to follow the
sound of her feet whispering against the ground and the fresh path of her scent
than it was to keep my eyes on her through the thick vegetation.
At no sign I could see, she whirled and dashed back to where I paused.
“Don’t attack me,” she warned, and sprang at me.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, squirming as she scrambled onto my back
and wrapped her hands around my face. I felt the urge to throw her off, but I
controlled it.
“Making sure you can’t see.”
“I could take care of that without the theatrics,” Edward offered.
“You might let her cheat. Take her hand and lead her forward.”
“Alice, I—”
“Don’t bother, Bella. We’re doing this my way.”
I felt Edward’s fingers weave through mine. “Just a few seconds more, Bella.
Then she’ll go annoy someone else.” He pulled me forward. I kept up easily. I
wasn’t afraid of hitting a tree; the tree would be the only one getting hurt in that
scenario.
“You might be a little more appreciative,” Alice chided him. “This is as much for
you as it is for her.”
“True. Thank you again, Alice.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Alice’s voice suddenly shot up with excitement. “Stop there.
Turn her just a little to the right. Yes, like that. Okay. Are you ready?” she
squeaked.
“I’m ready.” There were new scents here, piquing my interest, increasing my
curiosity. Scents that didn’t belong in the deep woods. Honeysuckle. Smoke.
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Roses. Sawdust? Something metallic, too. The richness of deep earth, dug up and
exposed. I leaned toward the mystery.
Alice hopped down from my back, releasing her grip on my eyes.
I stared into the violet dark. There, nestled into a small clearing in the forest, was
a tiny stone cottage, lavender gray in the light of the stars.
It belonged here so absolutely that it seemed as if it must have grown from the
rock, a natural formation. Honeysuckle climbed up one wall like a lattice, winding
all the way up and over the thick wooden shingles. Late summer roses bloomed in
a handkerchief-sized garden under the dark, deep-set windows. There was a little
path of flat stones, amethyst in the night, that led up to the quaint arched wooden
door.
I curled my hand around the key I held, shocked.
“What do you think?” Alice’s voice was soft now; it fit with the perfect quiet of the
storybook scene.
I opened my mouth but said nothing.
“Esme thought we might like a place of our own for a while, but she didn’t want
us too far away,” Edward murmured. “And she loves any excuse to renovate. This
little place has been crumbling away out here for at least a hundred years.”
I continued staring, mouth gaping like a fish.
“Don’t you like it?” Alice’s face fell. “I mean, I’m sure we could fix it up
differently, if you want. Emmett was all for adding a few thousand square feet, a
second story, columns, and a tower, but Esme thought you would like it best the
way it was meant to look.” Her voice started to climb, to go faster. “If she was
wrong, we can get back to work. It won’t take long to—”
“Shh!” I managed.
She pressed her lips together and waited. It took me a few seconds to recover.
“You’re giving me a house for my birthday?” I whispered.
“Us,” Edward corrected. “And it’s no more than a cottage. I think the word house
implies more legroom.”
“No knocking my house,” I whispered to him.
Alice beamed. “You like it.”
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I shook my head.
“Love it?”
I nodded.
“I can’t wait to tell Esme!”
“Why didn’t she come?”
Alice’s smile faded a little, twisted just off what it had been, like my question was
hard to answer. “Oh, you know… they all remember how you are about presents.
They didn’t want to put you under too much pressure to like it.”
“But of course I love it. How could I not?”
“They’ll like that.” She patted my arm. “Anyhoo, your closet is stocked. Use it
wisely. And… I guess that’s everything.”
“Aren’t you going to come inside?”
She strolled casually a few feet back. “Edward knows his way around. I’ll stop
by… later. Call me if you can’t match your clothes right.” She threw me a doubtful
look and then smiled. “Jazz wants to hunt. See you.”
She shot off into the trees like the most graceful bullet.
“That was weird,” I said when the sound of her flight had vanished completely.
“Am I really that bad? They didn’t have to stay away. Now I feel guilty. I didn’t
even thank her right. We should go back, tell Esme—”
“Bella, don’t be silly. No one thinks you’re that unreasonable.”
“Then what—”
“Alone time is their other gift. Alice was trying to be subtle about it.”
“Oh.”
That was all it took to make the house disappear. We could have been anywhere. I
didn’t see the trees or the stones or the stars. It was just Edward.
“Let me show you what they’ve done,” he said, pulling my hand. Was he oblivious
to the fact that an electric current was pulsing through my body like adrenalinespiked
blood?
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Once again I felt oddly off balance, waiting for reactions my body wasn’t capable
of anymore. My heart should have been thundering like a steam engine about to
hit us. Deafening. My cheeks should have been brilliant red.
For that matter, I ought to have been exhausted. This had been the longest day of
my life.
I laughed out loud—just one quiet little laugh of shock—when I realized that this
day would never end.
“Do I get to hear the joke?”
“It’s not a very good one,” I told him as he led the way to the little rounded door.
“I was just thinking—today is the first and last day of forever. It’s kind of hard to
wrap my head around it. Even with all this extra room for wrapping.” I laughed
again.
He chuckled with me. He held his hand out toward the doorknob, waiting for me
to do the honors. I stuck the key in the lock and turned it.
“You’re such a natural at this, Bella; I forget how very strange this all must be for
you. I wish I could hear it.” He ducked down and yanked me up into his arms so
fast that I didn’t see it coming—and that was really something.
“Hey!”
“Thresholds are part of my job description,” he reminded me. “But I’m curious.
Tell me what you’re thinking about right now.”
He opened the door—it fell back with a barely audible creak—and stepped
through into the little stone living room.
“Everything,” I told him. “All at the same time, you know. Good things and things
to worry about and things that are new. How I keep using too many superlatives
in my head. Right now, I’m thinking that Esme is an artist. It’s so perfect!”
The cottage room was something from a fairy tale. The floor was a crazy quilt of
smooth, flat stones. The low ceiling had long exposed beams that someone as tall
as Jacob would surely knock his head on. The walls were warm wood in some
places, stone mosaics in others. The beehive fireplace in the corner held the
remains of a slow flickering fire. It was driftwood burning there—the low flames
were blue and green from the salt.
It was furnished in eclectic pieces, not one of them matching another, but
harmonious just the same. One chair seemed vaguely medieval, while a low
ottoman by the fire was more contemporary and the stocked bookshelf against
the far window reminded me of movies set in Italy. Somehow each piece fit
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together with the others like a big three-dimensional puzzle. There were a few
paintings on the walls that I recognized—some of my very favorites from the big
house. Priceless originals, no doubt, but they seemed to belong here, too, like all
the rest.
It was a place where anyone could believe magic existed. A place where you just
expected Snow White to walk right in with her apple in hand, or a unicorn to stop
and nibble at the rosebushes.
Edward had always thought that he belonged to the world of horror stories. Of
course, I’d known he was dead wrong. It was obvious that he belonged here. In a
fairy tale.
And now I was in the story with him.
I was about to take advantage of the fact that he hadn’t gotten around to setting
me back on my feet and that his wits-scramblingly beautiful face was only inches
away when he said, “We’re lucky Esme thought to add an extra room. No one was
planning for Ness—Renesmee.”
I frowned at him, my thoughts channeled down a less pleasant path.
“Not you, too,” I complained.
“Sorry, love. I hear it in their thoughts all the time, you know. It’s rubbing off on
me.”
I sighed. My baby, the sea serpent. Maybe there was no help for it. Well, I wasn’t
giving in.
“I’m sure you’re dying to see the closet. Or, at least I’ll tell Alice that you were, to
make her feel good.”
“Should I be afraid?”
“Terrified.”
He carried me down a narrow stone hallway with tiny arches in the ceiling, like it
was our own miniature castle.
“That will be Renesmee’s room,” he said, nodding to an empty room with a pale
wooden floor. “They didn’t have time to do much with it, what with the angry
werewolves. . . .”
I laughed quietly, amazed at how quickly everything had turned right when it had
all had looked so nightmarish just a week ago.
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Drat Jacob for making everything perfect this way.
“Here’s our room. Esme tried to bring some of her island back here for us. She
guessed that we would get attached.”
The bed was huge and white, with clouds of gossamer floating down from the
canopy to the floor. The pale wood floor matched the other room, and now I
grasped that it was precisely the color of a pristine beach. The walls were that
almost-white-blue of a brilliant sunny day, and the back wall had big glass doors
that opened into a little hidden garden. Climbing roses and a small round pond,
smooth as a mirror and edged with shiny stones. A tiny, calm ocean for us.
“Oh” was all I could say.
“I know,” he whispered.
We stood there for a minute, remembering. Though the memories were human
and clouded, they took over my mind completely.
He smiled a wide, gleaming smile and then laughed. “The closet is through those
double doors. I should warn you—it’s bigger than this room.”
I didn’t even glance at the doors. There was nothing else in the world but him
again—his arms curled under me, his sweet breath on my face, his lips just inches
from mine—and there was nothing that could distract me now, newborn vampire
or not.
“We’re going to tell Alice that I ran right to the clothes,” I whispered, twisting my
fingers into his hair and pulling my face closer to his. “We’re going to tell her I
spent hours in there playing dress-up. We’re going to lie.”
He caught up to my mood in an instant, or maybe he’d already been there, and he
was just trying to let me fully appreciate my birthday present, like a gentleman.
He pulled my face to his with a sudden fierceness, a low moan in his throat. The
sound sent the electric current running through my body into a near-frenzy, like I
couldn’t get close enough to him fast enough.
I heard the fabric tearing under our hands, and I was glad my clothes, at least,
were already destroyed. It was too late for his. It felt almost rude to ignore the
pretty white bed, but we just weren’t going to make it that far.
This second honeymoon wasn’t like our first.
Our time on the island had been the epitome of my human life. The very best of
it. I’d been so ready to string along my human time, just to hold on to what I had
with him for a little while longer. Because the physical part wasn’t going to be the
same ever again.
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I should have guessed, after a day like today, that it would be better.
I could really appreciate him now—could properly see every beautiful line of his
perfect face, of his long, flawless body with my strong new eyes, every angle and
every plane of him. I could taste his pure, vivid scent on my tongue and feel the
unbelievable silkiness of his marble skin under my sensitive fingertips.
My skin was so sensitive under his hands, too.
He was all new, a different person as our bodies tangled gracefully into one on the
sand-pale floor. No caution, no restraint. No fear—especially not that. We could
love together—both active participants now. Finally equals.
Like our kisses before, every touch was more than I was used to. So much of
himself he’d been holding back. Necessary at the time, but I couldn’t believe how
much I’d been missing.
I tried to keep in mind that I was stronger than he was, but it was hard to focus
on anything with sensations so intense, pulling my attention to a million different
places in my body every second; if I hurt him, he didn’t complain.
A very, very small part of my head considered the interesting conundrum
presented in this situation. I was never going to get tired, and neither was he. We
didn’t have to catch our breath or rest or eat or even use the bathroom; we had no
more mundane human needs. He had the most beautiful, perfect body in the
world and I had him all to myself, and it didn’t feel like I was ever going to find a
point where I would think, Now I’ve had enough for one day. I was always going
to want more. And the day was never going to end. So, in such a situation, how
did we ever stop?
It didn’t bother me at all that I had no answer.
I sort of noticed when the sky began to lighten. The tiny ocean outside turned
from black to gray, and a lark started to sing somewhere very close by—maybe
she had a nest in the roses.
“Do you miss it?” I asked him when her song was done.
It wasn’t the first time we’d spoken, but we weren’t exactly keeping up a
conversation, either.
“Miss what?” he murmured.
“All of it—the warmth, the soft skin, the tasty smell… I’m not losing anything at
all, and I just wondered if it was a little bit sad for you that you were.”
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He laughed, low and gentle. “It would be hard to find someone less sad than I am
now. Impossible, I’d venture. Not many people get every single thing they want,
plus all the things they didn’t think to ask for, in the same day.”
“Are you avoiding the question?”
He pressed his hand against my face. “You are warm,” he told me.
It was true, in a sense. To me, his hand was warm. It wasn’t the same as touching
Jacob’s flame-hot skin, but it was more comfortable. More natural.
Then he pulled his fingers very slowly down my face, lightly tracing from my jaw
to my throat and then all the way down to my waist. My eyes rolled back into my
head a little.
“You are soft.”
His fingers were like satin against my skin, so I could see what he meant.
“And as for the scent, well, I couldn’t say I missed that. Do you remember the
scent of those hikers on our hunt?”
“I’ve been trying very hard not to.”
“Imagine kissing that.”
My throat ripped into flames like pulling the cord on a hot-air balloon.
“Oh.”
“Precisely. So the answer is no. I am purely full of joy, because I am missing
nothing. No one has more than I do now.”
I was about to inform him of the one exception to his statement, but my lips were
suddenly very busy.
When the little pool turned pearl-colored with the sunrise, I thought of another
question for him.
“How long does this go on? I mean, Carlisle and Esme, Em and Rose, Alice and
Jasper—they don’t spend all day locked in their rooms. They’re out in public, fully
clothed, all the time. Does this… craving ever let up?” I twisted myself closer into
him—quite an accomplishment, actually—to make it clear what I was talking
about.
“That’s difficult to say. Everyone is different and, well, so far you’re the very most
different of all. The average young vampire is too obsessed with thirst to notice
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much else for a while. That doesn’t seem to apply to you. With the average
vampire, though, after that first year, other needs make themselves known.
Neither thirst nor any other desire really ever fades. It’s simply a matter of
learning to balance them, learning to prioritize and manage. . . .”
“How long?”
He smiled, wrinkling his nose a little. “Rosalie and Emmett were the worst. It
took a solid decade before I could stand to be within a five-mile radius of them.
Even Carlisle and Esme had a difficult time stomaching it. They kicked the happy
couple out eventually. Esme built them a house, too. It was grander than this one,
but then, Esme knows what Rose likes, and she knows what you like.”
“So, after ten years, then?” I was pretty sure that Rosalie and Emmett had
nothing on us, but it might sound cocky if I went higher than a decade.
“Everybody is normal again? Like they are now?”
Edward smiled again. “Well, I’m not sure what you mean by normal. You’ve seen
my family going about life in a fairly human way, but you’ve been sleeping
nights.” He winked at me. “There’s a tremendous amount of time left over when
you don’t have to sleep. It makes balancing your… interests quite easy. There’s a
reason why I’m the best musician in the family, why—besides Carlisle—I’ve read
the most books, studied the most sciences, become fluent in the most
languages.… Emmett would have you believe that I’m such a know-it-all because
of the mind reading, but the truth is that I’ve just had a lot of free time.”
We laughed together, and the motion of our laughter did interesting things to the
way our bodies were connected, effectively ending that conversation.
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25. FAVOR
It was only a little while later that Edward reminded me of my priorities.
It took him just one word.
“Renesmee . . .”
I sighed. She would be awake soon. It must be nearly seven in the morning.
Would she be looking for me? Abruptly, something close to panic had my body
freezing up. What would she look like today?
Edward felt the total distraction of my stress. “It’s all right, love. Get dressed, and
we’ll be back to the house in two seconds.”
I probably looked like a cartoon, the way I sprung up, then looked back at him—
his diamond body faintly glinting in the diffuse light—then away to the west,
where Renesmee waited, then back at him again, then back toward her, my head
whipping from side to side a half dozen times in a second. Edward smiled, but
didn’t laugh; he was a strong man.
“It’s all about balance, love. You’re so good at all of this, I don’t imagine it will
take too long to put everything in perspective.”
“And we have all night, right?”
He smiled wider. “Do you think I could bear to let you get dressed now if that
weren’t the case?”
That would have to be enough to get me through the daylight hours. I would
balance this overwhelming, devastating desire so that I could be a good— It was
hard to think the word. Though Renesmee was very real and vital in my life, it
was still difficult to think of myself as a mother. I supposed anyone would feel the
same, though, without nine months to get used to the idea. And with a child that
changed by the hour.
The thought of Renesmee’s speeding life had me stressed-out again in an instant.
I didn’t even pause at the ornately carved double doors to catch my breath before
finding out what Alice had done. I just burst through, intent on wearing the first
things I touched. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Which ones are mine?” I hissed. As promised, the room was bigger than our
bedroom. It might have been bigger than the rest of the house put together, but
I’d have to pace it off to be positive. I had a brief mental flash of Alice trying to
persuade Esme to ignore classic proportions and allow this monstrosity. I
wondered how Alice had won that one.
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Everything was wrapped in garment bags, pristine and white, row after row after
row.
“To the best of my knowledge, everything but this rack here”—he touched a bar
that stretched along the half-wall to the left of the door—“is yours.”
“All of this?”
He shrugged.
“Alice,” we said together. He said her name like an explanation; I said it like an
expletive.
“Fine,” I muttered, and I pulled down the zipper on the closest bag. I growled
under my breath when I saw the floorlength silk gown inside—baby pink.
Finding something normal to wear could take all day!
“Let me help,” Edward offered. He sniffed carefully at the air and then followed
some scent to the back of the long room. There was a built-in dresser there. He
sniffed again, then opened a drawer. With a triumphant grin, he held out a pair of
artfully faded blue jeans.
I flitted to his side. “How did you do that?”
“Denim has its own scent just like anything else. Now… stretch cotton?”
He followed his nose to a half-rack, unearthing a long-sleeved white t-shirt. He
tossed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said fervently. I inhaled each fabric, memorizing the scent for future
searches through this madhouse. I remembered silk and satin; I would avoid
those.
It only took him seconds to find his own clothes—if I hadn’t seen him undressed,
I would have sworn there was nothing more beautiful than Edward in his khakis
and pale beige pullover—and then he took my hand. We darted through the
hidden garden, leaped lightly over the stone wall, and hit the forest at a dead
sprint. I pulled my hand free so that we could race back. He beat me this time.
Renesmee was awake; she was sitting up on the floor with Rose and Emmett
hovering over her, playing with a little pile of twisted silverware. She had a
mangled spoon in her right hand. As soon as she spied me through the glass, she
chucked the spoon on the floor—where it left a divot in the wood—and pointed in
my direction imperiously. Her audience laughed; Alice, Jasper, Esme, and
Carlisle were sitting on the couch, watching her as if she were the most
engrossing film.
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I was through the door before their laughter had barely begun, bounding across
the room and scooping her up from the floor in the same second. We smiled
widely at each other.
She was different, but not so much. A little longer again, her proportions drifting
from babyish to childlike. Her hair was longer by a quarter inch, the curls
bouncing like springs with every movement. I’d let my imagination run wild on
the trip back, and I’d imagined worse than this. Thanks to my overdone fears,
these little changes were almost a relief. Even without Carlisle’s measurements, I
was sure the changes were slower than yesterday.
Renesmee patted my cheek. I winced. She was hungry again.
“How long has she been up?” I asked as Edward disappeared through the kitchen
doorway. I was sure he was on his way to get her breakfast, having seen what
she’d just thought as clearly as I had. I wondered if he would ever have noticed
her little quirk, if he’d been the only one to know her. To him, it probably would
have seemed like hearing anyone.
“Just a few minutes,” Rose said. “We would have called you soon. She’s been
asking for you—demanding might be a better description. Esme sacrificed her
second-best silver service to keep the little monster entertained.” Rose smiled at
Renesmee with so much gloating affection that the criticism was entirely
weightless. “We didn’t want to… er, bother you.”
Rosalie bit her lip and looked away, trying not to laugh. I could feel Emmett’s
silent laughter behind me, sending vibrations through the foundations of the
house.
I kept my chin high. “We’ll get your room set up right away,” I said to Renesmee.
“You’ll like the cottage. It’s magic.” I look up at Esme. “Thank you, Esme. So
much. It’s absolutely perfect.”
Before Esme could respond, Emmett was laughing again—it wasn’t silent this
time.
“So it’s still standing?” he managed to get out between his snickers. “I would’ve
thought you two had knocked it to rubble by now. What were you doing last
night? Discussing the national debt?” He howled with laughter.
I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of the negative consequences when I’d let
my temper get away from me yesterday. Of course, Emmett wasn’t as breakable
as Seth. . . .
Thinking of Seth made me wonder. “Where’re the wolves today?” I glanced out
the window wall, but there had been no sign of Leah on the way in.
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“Jacob took off this morning pretty early,” Rosalie told me, a little frown creasing
her forehead. “Seth followed him out.”
“What was he so upset about?” Edward asked as he came back into the room with
Renesmee’s cup. There must have been more in Rosalie’s memory than I’d seen
in her expression.
Without breathing, I handed Renesmee off to Rosalie. Super-self-control, maybe,
but there was no way I was going to be able to feed her. Not yet.
“I don’t know—or care,” Rosalie grumbled, but she answered Edward’s question
more fully. “He was watching Nessie sleep, his mouth hanging open like the
moron he is, and then he just jumped to his feet without any kind of trigger—that
I noticed, anyway—and stormed out. I was glad to be rid of him. The more time
he spends here, the less chance there is that we’ll ever get the smell out.”
“Rose,” Esme chided gently.
Rosalie flipped her hair. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. We won’t be here that much
longer.”
“I still say we should go straight to New Hampshire and get things set up,”
Emmett said, obviously continuing an earlier conversation. “Bella’s already
registered at Dartmouth. Doesn’t look like it will take her all that long to be able
to handle school.” He turned to look at me with a teasing grin. “I’m sure you’ll ace
your classes… apparently there’s nothing interesting for you to do at night besides
study.”
Rosalie giggled.
Do not lose your temper, do not lose your temper, I chanted to myself. And then
I was proud of myself for keeping my head.
So I was pretty surprised that Edward didn’t.
He growled—an abrupt, shocking rasp of sound—and the blackest fury rolled
across his expression like storm clouds.
Before any of us could respond, Alice was on her feet.
“What is he doing? What is that dog doing that has erased my schedule for the
entire day? I can’t see anything! No!” She shot me a tortured glance. “Look at
you! You need me to show you how to use your closet.”
For one second I was grateful for whatever Jacob was up to.
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And then Edward’s hands balled up into fists and he snarled, “He talked to
Charlie. He thinks Charlie is following after him. Coming here. Today.”
Alice said a word that sounded very odd in her trilling, ladylike voice, and then
she blurred into motion, streaking out the back door.
“He told Charlie?” I gasped. “But—doesn’t he understand? How could he do
that?” Charlie couldn’t know about me! About vampires! That would put him on a
hit list that even the Cullens couldn’t save him from. “No!”
Edward spoke through his teeth. “Jacob’s on his way in now.”
It must have started raining farther east. Jacob came through the door shaking
his wet hair like a dog, flipping droplets on the carpet and the couch where they
made little round gray spots on the white. His teeth glinted against his dark lips;
his eyes were bright and excited. He walked with jerky movements, like he was all
hyped-up about destroying my father’s life.
“Hey, guys,” he greeted us, grinning.
It was perfectly silent.
Leah and Seth slipped in behind him, in their human forms—for now; both of
their hands were trembling with the tension in the room.
“Rose,” I said, holding my arms out. Wordlessly, Rosalie handed me Renesmee. I
pressed her close to my motionless heart, holding her like a talisman against rash
behavior. I would keep her in my arms until I was sure my decision to kill Jacob
was based entirely on rational judgment rather than fury.
She was very still, watching and listening. How much did she understand?
“Charlie’ll be here soon,” Jacob said to me casually. “Just a heads-up. I assume
Alice is getting you sunglasses or something?”
“You assume way too much,” I spit through my teeth. “What. Have. You. Done?”
Jacob’s smile wavered, but he was still too wound up to answer seriously.
“Blondie and Emmett woke me up this morning going on and on about you all
moving cross-country. Like I could let you leave. Charlie was the biggest issue
there, right? Well, problem solved.”
“Do you even realize what you’ve done? The danger you’ve put him in?”
He snorted. “I didn’t put him in danger. Except from you. But you’ve got some
kind of supernatural self-control, right? Not as good as mind reading, if you ask
me. Much less exciting.”
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Edward moved then, darting across the room to get in Jacob’s face. Though he
was half a head shorter than Jacob, Jacob leaned away from his staggering anger
as if Edward towered over him.
“That’s just a theory, mongrel,” he snarled. “You think we should test it out on
Charlie? Did you consider the physical pain you’re putting Bella through, even if
she can resist? Or the emotional pain if she doesn’t? I suppose what happens to
Bella no longer concerns you!” He spit the last word.
Renesmee pressed her fingers anxiously to my cheek, anxiety coloring the replay
in her head.
Edward’s words finally cut through Jacob’s strangely electric mood. His mouth
dropped into a frown. “Bella will be in pain?”
“Like you’ve shoved a white-hot branding iron down her throat!”
I flinched, remembering the scent of pure human blood.
“I didn’t know that,” Jacob whispered.
“Then perhaps you should have asked first,” Edward growled back through his
teeth.
“You would have stopped me.”
“You should have been stopped—”
“This isn’t about me,” I interrupted. I stood very still, keeping my hold on
Renesmee and sanity. “This is about Charlie, Jacob. How could you put him in
danger this way? Do you realize it’s death or vampire life for him now, too?” My
voice trembled with the tears my eyes could no longer shed.
Jacob was still troubled by Edward’s accusations, but mine didn’t seem to bother
him. “Relax, Bella. I didn’t tell him anything you weren’t planning to tell him.”
“But he’s coming here!”
“Yeah, that’s the idea. Wasn’t the whole ‘let him make the wrong assumptions’
thing your plan? I think I provided a very nice red herring, if I do say so myself.”
My fingers flexed away from Renesmee. I curled them back in securely. “Say it
straight, Jacob. I don’t have the patience for this.”
“I didn’t tell him anything about you, Bella. Not really. I told him about me. Well,
show is probably a better verb.”
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“He phased in front of Charlie,” Edward hissed.
I whispered, “You what?”
“He’s brave. Brave as you are. Didn’t pass out or throw up or anything. I gotta
say, I was impressed. You should’ve seen his face when I started taking my
clothes off, though. Priceless,” Jacob chortled.
“You absolute moron! You could have given him a heart attack!”
“Charlie’s fine. He’s tough. If you’d give this just a minute, you’ll see that I did
you a favor here.”
“You have half of that, Jacob.” My voice was flat and steely. “You have thirty
seconds to tell me every single word before I give Renesmee to Rosalie and rip
your miserable head off. Seth won’t be able to stop me this time.”
“Jeez, Bells. You didn’t used to be so melodramatic. Is that a vampire thing?”
“Twenty-six seconds.”
Jacob rolled his eyes and flopped into the nearest chair. His little pack moved to
stand on his flanks, not at all relaxed the way he seemed to be; Leah’s eyes were
on me, her teeth slightly bared.
“So I knocked on Charlie’s door this morning and asked him to come for a walk
with me. He was confused, but when I told him it was about you and that you
were back in town, he followed me out to the woods. I told him you weren’t sick
anymore, and that things were a little weird, but good. He was about to take off to
see you, but I told him I had to show him something first. And then I phased.”
Jacob shrugged.
My teeth felt like a vise was pushing them together. “I want every word, you
monster.”
“Well, you said I only had thirty seconds—okay, okay.” My expression must have
convinced him that I wasn’t in the mood for teasing. “Lemme see… I phased back
and got dressed, and then after he started breathing again, I said something like,
‘Charlie, you don’t live in the world you thought you lived in. The good news is,
nothing has changed—except that now you know. Life’ll go on the same way it
always has. You can go right back to pretending that you don’t believe any of this.’
“It took him a minute to get his head together, and then he wanted to know what
was really going on with you, with the whole rare-disease thing. I told him that
you had been sick, but you were fine now—it was just that you’d had to change a
little bit in the process of getting better. He wanted to know what I meant by
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‘change,’ and I told him that you looked a lot more like Esme now than you
looked like Renée.”
Edward hissed while I stared in horror; this was headed in a dangerous direction.
“After a few minutes, he asked, real quietly, if you turned into an animal, too. And
I said, ‘She wishes she was that cool!’” Jacob chuckled.
Rosalie made a noise of disgust.
“I started to tell him more about werewolves, but I didn’t even get the whole word
out—Charlie cut me off and said he’d ‘rather not know the specifics.’ Then he
asked if you’d known what you were getting yourself into when you married
Edward, and I said, ‘Sure, she’s known all about this for years, since she first
came to Forks.’ He didn’t like that very much. I let him rant till he got it out of his
system. After he got calmed down, he just wanted two things. He wanted to see
you, and I said it would be better if he gave me a head start to explain.”
I inhaled deeply. “What was the other thing he wanted?”
Jacob smiled. “You’ll like this. His main request is that he be told as little as
possible about all of this. If it’s not absolutely essential for him to know
something, then keep it to yourself. Need to know, only.”
I felt relief for the first time since Jacob had walked in. “I can handle that part.”
“Other than that, he’d just like to pretend things are normal.” Jacob’s smile
turned smug; he must suspect that I would be starting to feel the first faint
stirrings of gratitude about now.
“What did you tell him about Renesmee?” I struggled to maintain the razor edge
in my voice, fighting the reluctant appreciation. It was premature. There was still
so much wrong with this situation. Even if Jacob’s intervention had brought out a
better reaction in Charlie than I’d ever hoped for…
“Oh yeah. So I told him that you and Edward had inherited a new little mouth to
feed.” He glanced at Edward. “She’s your orphaned ward—like Bruce Wayne and
Dick Grayson.” Jacob snorted. “I didn’t think you’d mind me lying. That’s all part
of the game, right?” Edward didn’t respond in any way, so Jacob went on.
“Charlie was way past being shocked at this point, but he did ask if you were
adopting her. ‘Like a daughter? Like I’m sort of a grandfather?’ were his exact
words. I told him yes. ‘Congrats, Gramps,’ and all of that. He even smiled a little.”
The stinging returned to my eyes, but not out of fear or anguish this time. Charlie
was smiling at the idea of being a grandpa? Charlie would meet Renesmee?
“But she’s changing so fast,” I whispered.
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“I told him that she was more special than all of us put together,” Jacob said in a
soft voice. He stood and walked right up to me, waving Leah and Seth off when
they started to follow. Renesmee reached out to him, but I hugged her more
tightly to me. “I told him, ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know about this. But if you
can ignore all the strange parts, you’re going to be amazed. She’s the most
wonderful person in the whole world.’ And then I told him that if he could deal
with that, you all would stick around for a while and he would have a chance to
get to know her. But that if it was too much for him, you would leave. He said as
long as no one forced too much information on him, he’d deal.”
Jacob stared at me with half a smile, waiting.
“I’m not going to say thank you,” I told him. “You’re still putting Charlie at a huge
risk.”
“I am sorry about it hurting you. I didn’t know it was like that. Bella, things are
different with us now, but you’ll always be my best friend, and I’ll always love
you. But I’ll love you the right way now. There’s finally a balance. We both have
people we can’t live without.”
He smiled his very most Jacob-y smile. “Still friends?”
Try as hard as I could to resist, I had to smile back. Just a tiny smile.
He held out his hand: an offer.
I took a deep breath and shifted Renesmee’s weight to one arm. I put my left
hand in his—he didn’t even flinch at the feel of my cool skin. “If I don’t kill
Charlie tonight, I’ll consider forgiving you for this.”
“When you don’t kill Charlie tonight, you’ll owe me huge.”
I rolled my eyes.
He held out his other hand toward Renesmee, a request this time. “Can I?”
“I’m actually holding her so that my hands aren’t free to kill you, Jacob. Maybe
later.”
He sighed but didn’t push me on it. Wise of him.
Alice raced back through the door then, her hands full and her expression
promising violence.
“You, you, and you,” she snapped, glaring at the werewolves. “If you must stay,
get over in the corner and commit to being there for a while. I need to see. Bella,
you’d better give him the baby, too. You’ll need your arms free, anyway.”
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Jacob grinned in triumph.
Undiluted fear ripped through my stomach as the enormity of what I was about
to do hit me. I was going to gamble on my iffy self-control with my pure human
father as the guinea pig. Edward’s earlier words crashed in my ears again.
Did you consider the physical pain you’re putting Bella through, even if she can
resist? Or the emotional pain if she doesn’t?
I couldn’t imagine the pain of failure. My breathing turned to gasps.
“Take her,” I whispered, sliding Renesmee into Jacob’s arms.
He nodded, concern wrinkling his forehead. He gestured to the others, and they
all went to the far corner of the room. Seth and Jake slouched on the floor at
once, but Leah shook her head and pursed her lips.
“Am I allowed to leave?” she griped. She looked uncomfortable in her human
body, wearing the same dirty t-shirt and cotton shorts she’d worn to shriek at me
the other day, her short hair sticking up in irregular tufts. Her hands were still
shaking.
“Of course,” Jake said.
“Stay east so you don’t cross Charlie’s path,” Alice added.
Leah didn’t look at Alice; she ducked out the back door and stomped into the
bushes to phase.
Edward was back at my side, stroking my face. “You can do this. I know you can.
I’ll help you; we all will.”
I met Edward’s eyes with panic screaming from my face. Was he strong enough to
stop me if I made a wrong move?
“If I didn’t believe you could handle it, we’d disappear today. This very minute.
But you can. And you’ll be happier if you can have Charlie in your life.”
I tried to slow my breathing.
Alice held out her hand. There was a small white box on her palm. “These will
irritate your eyes—they won’t hurt, but they’ll cloud your vision. It’s annoying.
They also won’t match your old color, but it’s still better than bright red, right?”
She flipped the contact box into the air and I caught it.
“When did you—”
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“Before you left on the honeymoon. I was prepared for several possible futures.”
I nodded and opened the container. I’d never worn contacts before, but it
couldn’t be that hard. I took the little brown quarter-sphere and pressed it,
concave side in, to my eye.
I blinked, and a film interrupted my sight. I could see through it, of course, but I
could also see the texture of the thin screen. My eye kept focusing on the
microscopic scratches and warped sections.
“I see what you mean,” I murmured as I stuck the other one in. I tried to not blink
this time. My eye automatically wanted to dislodge the obstruction.
“How do I look?”
Edward smiled. “Gorgeous. Of course—”
“Yes, yes, she always looks gorgeous,” Alice finished his thought impatiently. “It’s
better than red, but that’s the highest commendation I can give. Muddy brown.
Your brown was much prettier. Keep in mind that those won’t last forever—the
venom in your eyes will dissolve them in a few hours. So if Charlie stays longer
than that, you’ll have to excuse yourself to replace them. Which is a good idea
anyway, because humans need bathroom breaks.” She shook her head. “Esme,
give her a few pointers on acting human while I stock the powder room with
contacts.”
“How long do I have?”
“Charlie will be here in five minutes. Keep it simple.”
Esme nodded once and came to take my hand. “The main thing is not to sit too
still or move too fast,” she told me.
“Sit down if he does,” Emmett interjected. “Humans don’t like to just stand
there.”
“Let your eyes wander every thirty seconds or so,” Jasper added. “Humans don’t
stare at one thing for too long.”
“Cross your legs for about five minutes, then switch to crossing your ankles for
the next five,” Rosalie said.
I nodded once at each suggestion. I’d noticed them doing some of these things
yesterday. I thought I could mimic their actions.
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“And blink at least three times a minute,” Emmett said. He frowned, then darted
to where the television remote sat on the end table. He flipped the TV on to a
college football game and nodded to himself.
“Move your hands, too. Brush your hair back or pretend to scratch something,”
Jasper said.
“I said Esme,” Alice complained as she returned. “You’ll overwhelm her.”
“No, I think I got it all,” I said. “Sit, look around, blink, fidget.”
“Right,” Esme approved. She hugged my shoulders.
Jasper frowned. “You’ll be holding your breath as much as possible, but you need
to move your shoulders a little to make it look like you’re breathing.”
I inhaled once and then nodded again.
Edward hugged me on my free side. “You can do this,” he repeated, murmuring
the encouragement in my ear.
“Two minutes,” Alice said. “Maybe you should start out already on the couch.
You’ve been sick, after all. That way he won’t have to see you move right at first.”
Alice pulled me to the sofa. I tried to move slowly, to make my limbs more
clumsy. She rolled her eyes, so I must not have been doing a good job.
“Jacob, I need Renesmee,” I said.
Jacob frowned, unmoving.
Alice shook her head. “Bella, that doesn’t help me see.”
“But I need her. She keeps me calm.” The edge of panic in my voice was
unmistakable.
“Fine,” Alice groaned. “Hold her as still as you can and I’ll try to see around her.”
She sighed wearily, like she’d been asked to work overtime on a holiday. Jacob
sighed, too, but brought Renesmee to me, and then retreated quickly from Alice’s
glare.
Edward took a seat beside me and put his arms around Renesmee and me. He
leaned forward and looked Renesmee very seriously in the eyes.
“Renesmee, someone special is coming to see you and your mother,” he said in a
solemn voice, as if he expected her to understand every word. Did she? She
looked back at him with clear, grave eyes. “But he’s not like us, or even like Jacob.
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We have to be very careful with him. You shouldn’t tell him things the way you
tell us.”
Renesmee touched his face.
“Exactly,” he said. “And he’s going to make you thirsty. But you mustn’t bite him.
He won’t heal like Jacob.”
“Can she understand you?” I whispered.
“She understands. You’ll be careful, won’t you, Renesmee? You’ll help us?”
Renesmee touched him again.
“No, I don’t care if you bite Jacob. That’s fine.”
Jacob chuckled.
“Maybe you should leave, Jacob,” Edward said coldly, glaring in his direction.
Edward hadn’t forgiven Jacob, because he knew that no matter what happened
now, I was going to be hurting. But I’d take the burn happily if that were the
worst thing I’d face tonight.
“I told Charlie I’d be here,” Jacob said. “He needs the moral support.”
“Moral support,” Edward scoffed. “As far as Charlie knows, you’re the most
repulsive monster of us all.”
“Repulsive?” Jake protested, and then he laughed quietly to himself.
I heard the tires turn off the highway onto the quiet, damp earth of the Cullens’
drive, and my breathing spiked again. My heart ought to have been hammering.
It made me anxious that my body didn’t have the right reactions.
I concentrated on the steady thrumming of Renesmee’s heart to calm myself. It
worked pretty quickly.
“Well done, Bella,” Jasper whispered in approval.
Edward tightened his arm over my shoulders.
“You’re sure?” I asked him.
“Positive. You can do anything.” He smiled and kissed me.
It wasn’t precisely a peck on the lips, and my wild vampiric reactions took me off
guard yet again. Edward’s lips were like a shot of some addictive chemical
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straight into my nervous system. I was instantly craving more. It took all my
concentration to remember the baby in my arms.
Jasper felt my mood change. “Er, Edward, you might not want to distract her like
that right now. She needs to be able to focus.”
Edward pulled away. “Oops,” he said.
I laughed. That had been my line from the very beginning, from the very first
kiss.
“Later,” I said, and anticipation curled my stomach into a ball.
“Focus, Bella,” Jasper urged.
“Right.” I pushed the trembly feelings away. Charlie, that was the main thing
now. Keep Charlie safe today. We would have all night. . . .
“Bella.”
“Sorry, Jasper.”
Emmett laughed.
The sound of Charlie’s cruiser got closer and closer. The second of levity passed,
and everyone was still. I crossed my legs and practiced my blinks.
The car pulled in front of the house and idled for a few seconds. I wondered if
Charlie was as nervous as I was. Then the engine cut off, and a door slammed.
Three steps across the grass, and then eight echoing thuds against the wooden
stairs. Four more echoing footsteps across the porch. Then silence. Charlie took
two deep breaths.
Knock, knock, knock.
I inhaled for what might be the last time. Renesmee nestled deeper into my arms,
hiding her face in my hair.
Carlisle answered the door. His stressed expression changed to one of welcome,
like switching the channel on the TV.
“Hello, Charlie,” he said, looking appropriately abashed. After all, we were
supposed to be in Atlanta at the Center for Disease Control. Charlie knew he’d
been lied to.
“Carlisle,” Charlie greeted him stiffly. “Where’s Bella?”
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“Right here, Dad.”
Ugh! My voice was so wrong. Plus, I’d used up some of my air supply. I gulped in
a quick refill, glad that Charlie’s scent had not saturated the room yet.
Charlie’s blank expression told me how off my voice was. His eyes zeroed in on
me and widened.
I read the emotions as they scrolled across his face.
Shock. Disbelief. Pain. Loss. Fear. Anger. Suspicion. More pain.
I bit my lip. It felt funny. My new teeth were sharper against my granite skin than
my human teeth had been against my soft human lips.
“Is that you, Bella?” he whispered.
“Yep.” I winced at my wind-chime voice. “Hi, Dad.”
He took a deep breath to steady himself.
“Hey, Charlie,” Jacob greeted him from the corner. “How’re things?”
Charlie glowered at Jacob once, shuddered at a memory, and then stared at me
again.
Slowly, Charlie walked across the room until he was a few feet away from me. He
darted an accusing glare at Edward, and then his eyes flickered back to me. The
warmth of his body heat beat against me with each pulse of his heart.
“Bella?” he asked again.
I spoke in a lower voice, trying to keep the ring out of it. “It’s really me.”
His jaw locked.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said.
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
“Really and truly great,” I promised. “Healthy as a horse.”
That was it for my oxygen.
“Jake told me this was… necessary. That you were dying.” He said the words like
he didn’t believe them one bit.
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I steeled myself, focused on Renesmee’s warm weight, leaned into Edward for
support, and took a deep breath.
Charlie’s scent was a fistful of flames, punching straight down my throat. But it
was so much more than pain. It was a hot stabbing of desire, too. Charlie smelled
more delicious than anything I’d ever imagined. As appealing as the anonymous
hikers had been on the hunt, Charlie was doubly tempting. And he was just a few
feet away, leaking mouthwatering heat and moisture into the dry air.
But I wasn’t hunting now. And this was my father.
Edward squeezed my shoulders sympathetically, and Jacob shot an apologetic
glance at me across the room.
I tried to collect myself and ignore the pain and longing of the thirst. Charlie was
waiting for my answer.
“Jacob was telling you the truth.”
“That makes one of you,” Charlie growled.
I hoped Charlie could see past the changes in my new face to read the remorse
there.
Under my hair, Renesmee sniffed as Charlie’s scent registered with her, too. I
tightened my grip on her.
Charlie saw my anxious glance down and followed it. “Oh,” he said, and all the
anger fell off his face, leaving only shock behind. “This is her. The orphan Jacob
said you’re adopting.”
“My niece,” Edward lied smoothly. He must have decided that the resemblance
between Renesmee and him was too pronounced to be ignored. Best to claim they
were related from the beginning.
“I thought you’d lost your family,” Charlie said, accusation returning to his voice.
“I lost my parents. My older brother was adopted, like me. I never saw him after
that. But the courts located me when he and his wife died in a car accident,
leaving their only child without any other family.”
Edward was so good at this. His voice was even, with just the right amount of
innocence. I needed practice so that I could do that.
Renesmee peeked out from under my hair, sniffing again. She glanced shyly at
Charlie from under her long lashes, then hid again.
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“She’s… she’s, well, she’s a beauty.”
“Yes,” Edward agreed.
“Kind of a big responsibility, though. You two are just getting started.”
“What else could we do?” Edward brushed his fingers lightly over her cheek. I
saw him touch her lips for just a moment—a reminder. “Would you have refused
her?”
“Hmph. Well.” He shook his head absently. “Jake says you call her Nessie?”
“No, we don’t,” I said, my voice too sharp and piercing. “Her name is Renesmee.”
Charlie refocused on me. “How do you feel about this? Maybe Carlisle and Esme
could—”
“She’s mine,” I interrupted. “I want her.”
Charlie frowned. “You gonna make me a grandpa so young?”
Edward smiled. “Carlisle is a grandfather, too.”
Charlie shot an incredulous glance at Carlisle, still standing by the front door; he
looked like Zeus’s younger, better-looking brother.
Charlie snorted and then laughed. “I guess that does sort of make me feel better.”
His eyes strayed back to Renesmee. “She sure is something to look at.” His warm
breath blew lightly across the space between us.
Renesmee leaned toward the smell, shaking off my hair and looking him full in
the face for the first time. Charlie gasped.
I knew what he was seeing. My eyes—his eyes—copied exactly into her perfect
face.
Charlie started hyperventilating. His lips trembled, and I could read the numbers
he mouthed. He was counting backward, trying to fit nine months into one.
Trying to put it together but not able to force the evidence right in front of him to
make any sense.
Jacob got up and came over to pat Charlie on the back. He leaned in to whisper
something in Charlie’s ear; only Charlie didn’t know we could all hear.
“Need to know, Charlie. It’s okay. I promise.”
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Charlie swallowed and nodded. And then his eyes blazed as he took a step closer
to Edward with his fists tightly clenched.
“I don’t want to know everything, but I’m done with the lies!”
“I’m sorry,” Edward said calmly, “but you need to know the public story more
than you need to know the truth. If you’re going to be part of this secret, the
public story is the one that counts. It’s to protect Bella and Renesmee as well as
the rest of us. Can you go along with the lies for them?”
The room was full of statues. I crossed my ankles.
Charlie huffed once and then turned his glare on me. “You might’ve given me
some warning, kid.”
“Would it really have made this any easier?”
He frowned, and then he knelt on the floor in front of me. I could see the
movement of the blood in his neck under his skin. I could feel the warm vibration
of it.
So could Renesmee. She smiled and reached one pink palm out to him. I held her
back. She pushed her other hand against my neck, thirst, curiosity, and Charlie’s
face in her thoughts. There was a subtle edge to the message that made me think
that she’d understood Edward’s words perfectly; she acknowledged thirst, but
overrode it in the same thought.
“Whoa,” Charlie gasped, his eyes on her perfect teeth. “How old is she?”
“Um . . .”
“Three months,” Edward said, and then added slowly, “rather, she’s the size of a
three-month-old, more or less. She’s younger in some ways, more mature in
others.”
Very deliberately, Renesmee waved at him.
Charlie blinked spastically.
Jacob elbowed him. “Told you she was special, didn’t I?”
Charlie cringed away from the contact.
“Oh, c’mon, Charlie,” Jacob groaned. “I’m the same person I’ve always been. Just
pretend this afternoon didn’t happen.”
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The reminder made Charlie’s lips go white, but he nodded once. “Just what is
your part in all this, Jake?” he asked. “How much does Billy know? Why are you
here?” He looked at Jacob’s face, which was glowing as he stared at Renesmee.
“Well, I could tell you all about it—Billy knows absolutely everything—but it
involves a lot of stuff about werewo—”
“Ungh!” Charlie protested, covering his ears. “Never mind.”
Jacob grinned. “Everything’s going to be great, Charlie. Just try to not believe
anything you see.”
My dad mumbled something unintelligible.
“Woo!” Emmett suddenly boomed in his deep bass. “Go Gators!”
Jacob and Charlie jumped. The rest of us froze.
Charlie recovered, then looked at Emmett over his shoulder. “Florida winning?”
“Just scored the first touchdown,” Emmett confirmed. He shot a look in my
direction, wagging his eyebrows like a villain in vaudeville. “’Bout time somebody
scored around here.”
I fought back a hiss. In front of Charlie? That was over the line.
But Charlie was beyond noticing innuendos. He took yet another deep breath,
sucking the air in like he was trying to pull it down to his toes. I envied him. He
lurched to his feet, stepped around Jacob, and half-fell into an open chair. “Well,”
he sighed, “I guess we should see if they can hold on to the lead.”
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26. SHINY
“I don’t know how much we should tell Renée about this,” Charlie said, hesitating
with one foot out the door. He stretched, and then his stomach growled.
I nodded. “I know. I don’t want to freak her out. Better to protect her. This stuff
isn’t for the fainthearted.”
His lips twisted up to the side ruefully. “I would have tried to protect you, too, if
I’d known how. But I guess you’ve never fit into the fainthearted category, have
you?”
I smiled back, pulling a blazing breath in through my teeth.
Charlie patted his stomach absently. “I’ll think of something. We’ve got time to
discuss this, right?”
“Right,” I promised him.
It had been a long day in some ways, and so short in others. Charlie was late for
dinner—Sue Clearwater was cooking for him and Billy. That was going to be an
awkward evening, but at least he’d be eating real food; I was glad someone was
trying to keep him from starving due to his lack of cooking ability.
All day the tension had made the minutes pass slowly; Charlie had never relaxed
the stiff set of his shoulders. But he’d been in no hurry to leave, either. He’d
watched two whole games—thankfully so absorbed in his thoughts that he was
totally oblivious to Emmett’s suggestive jokes that got more pointed and less
football-related with each aside—and the after-game commentaries, and then the
news, not moving until Seth had reminded him of the time.
“You gonna stand Billy and my mom up, Charlie? C’mon. Bella and Nessie’ll be
here tomorrow. Let’s get some grub, eh?”
It had been clear in Charlie’s eyes that he hadn’t trusted Seth’s assessment, but
he’d let Seth lead the way out. The doubt was still there as he paused now. The
clouds were thinning, the rain gone. The sun might even make an appearance just
in time to set.
“Jake says you guys were going to take off on me,” he muttered to me now.
“I didn’t want to do that if there was any way at all around it. That’s why we’re
still here.”
“He said you could stay for a while, but only if I’m tough enough, and if I can keep
my mouth shut.”
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“Yes… but I can’t promise that we’ll never leave, Dad. It’s pretty complicated. . . .”
“Need to know,” he reminded me.
“Right.”
“You’ll visit, though, if you have to go?”
“I promise, Dad. Now that you know just enough, I think this can work. I’ll keep
as close as you want.”
He chewed on his lip for half a second, then leaned slowly toward me with his
arms cautiously extended. I shifted Renesmee—napping now—to my left arm,
locked my teeth, held my breath, and wrapped my right arm very lightly around
his warm, soft waist.
“Keep real close, Bells,” he mumbled. “Real close.”
“Love you, Dad,” I whispered through my teeth.
He shivered and pulled away. I dropped my arm.
“Love you, too, kid. Whatever else has changed, that hasn’t.” He touched one
finger to Renesmee’s pink cheek. “She sure looks a lot like you.”
I kept my expression casual, though I felt anything but. “More like Edward, I
think.” I hesitated, and then added, “She has your curls.”
Charlie started, then snorted. “Huh. Guess she does. Huh. Grandpa.” He shook
his head doubtfully. “Do I ever get to hold her?”
I blinked in shock and then composed myself. After considering for a half second
and judging Renesmee’s appearance—she looked completely out—I decided that I
might as well push my luck to the limit, since things were going so well today. . . .
“Here,” I said, holding her out to him. He automatically made an awkward cradle
with his arms, and I tucked Renesmee into it. His skin wasn’t quite as hot as hers,
but it made my throat tickle to feel the warmth flowing under the thin membrane.
Where my white skin brushed him it left goose bumps. I wasn’t sure if this was a
reaction to my new temperature or totally psychological.
Charlie grunted quietly as he felt her weight. “She’s… sturdy.”
I frowned. She felt feather-light to me. Maybe my measure was off.
“Sturdy is good,” Charlie said, seeing my expression. Then he muttered to
himself, “She’ll need to be tough, surrounded by all this craziness.” He bounced
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his arms gently, swaying a little from side to side. “Prettiest baby I ever saw,
including you, kid. Sorry, but it’s true.”
“I know it is.”
“Pretty baby,” he said again, but it was closer to a coo this time.
I could see it in his face—I could watch it growing there. Charlie was just as
helpless against her magic as the rest of us. Two seconds in his arms, and already
she owned him.
“Can I come back tomorrow?”
“Sure, Dad. Of course. We’ll be here.”
“You’d better be,” he said sternly, but his face was soft, still gazing at Renesmee.
“See you tomorrow, Nessie.”
“Not you, too!”
“Huh?”
“Her name is Renesmee. Like Renée and Esme, put together. No variations.” I
struggled to calm myself without the deep breath this time. “Do you want to hear
her middle name?”
“Sure.”
“Carlie. With a C. Like Carlisle and Charlie put together.”
Charlie’s eye-creasing grin lit up his face, taking me off guard. “Thanks, Bells.”
“Thank you, Dad. So much has changed so quickly. My head hasn’t stopped
spinning. If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know how I’d keep my grip on—on
reality.” I’d been about to say my grip on who I was. That was probably more
than he needed.
Charlie’s stomach growled.
“Go eat, Dad. We will be here.” I remembered how it felt, that first uncomfortable
immersion in fantasy—the sensation that everything would disappear in the light
of the rising sun.
Charlie nodded and then reluctantly returned Renesmee to me. He glanced past
me into the house; his eyes were a little wild for a minute as he stared around the
big bright room. Everyone was still there, besides Jacob, who I could hear raiding
the refrigerator in the kitchen; Alice was lounging on the bottom step of the
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staircase with Jasper’s head in her lap; Carlisle had his head bent over a fat book
in his lap; Esme was humming to herself, sketching on a notepad, while Rosalie
and Emmett laid out the foundation for a monumental house of cards under the
stairs; Edward had drifted to his piano and was playing very softly to himself.
There was no evidence that the day was coming to a close, that it might be time to
eat or shift activities in preparation for evening. Something intangible had
changed in the atmosphere. The Cullens weren’t trying as hard as they usually
did—the human charade had slipped ever so slightly, enough for Charlie to feel
the difference.
He shuddered, shook his head, and sighed. “See you tomorrow, Bella.” He
frowned and then added, “I mean, it’s not like you don’t look… good. I’ll get used
to it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Charlie nodded and walked thoughtfully toward his car. I watched him drive
away; it wasn’t until I heard his tires hit the freeway that I realized I’d done it. I’d
actually made it through the whole day without hurting Charlie. All by myself. I
must have a superpower!
It seemed too good to be true. Could I really have both my new family and some
of my old as well? And I’d thought that yesterday had been perfect.
“Wow,” I whispered. I blinked and felt the third set of contact lenses disintegrate.
The sound of the piano cut off, and Edward’s arms were around my waist, his
chin resting on my shoulder.
“You took the word right out of my mouth.”
“Edward, I did it!”
“You did. You were unbelievable. All that worrying over being a newborn, and
then you skip it altogether.” He laughed quietly.
“I’m not even sure she’s really a vampire, let alone a newborn,” Emmett called
from under the stairs. “She’s too tame.”
All the embarrassing comments he’d made in front of my father sounded in my
ears again, and it was probably a good thing I was holding Renesmee. Unable to
help my reaction entirely, I snarled under my breath.
“Oooo, scary,” Emmett laughed.
I hissed, and Renesmee stirred in my arms. She blinked a few times, then looked
around, her expression confused. She sniffed, then reached for my face.
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“Charlie will be back tomorrow,” I assured her.
“Excellent,” Emmett said. Rosalie laughed with him this time.
“Not brilliant, Emmett,” Edward said scornfully, holding out his hands to take
Renesmee from me. He winked when I hesitated, and so, a little confused, I gave
her to him.
“What do you mean?” Emmett demanded.
“It’s a little dense, don’t you think, to antagonize the strongest vampire in the
house?”
Emmett threw his head back and snorted. “Please!”
“Bella,” Edward murmured to me while Emmett listened closely, “do you
remember a few months ago, I asked you to do me a favor once you were
immortal?”
That rang a dim bell. I sifted through the blurry human conversations. After a
moment, I remembered and I gasped, “Oh!”
Alice trilled a long, pealing laugh. Jacob poked his head around the corner, his
mouth stuffed with food.
“What?” Emmett growled.
“Really?” I asked Edward.
“Trust me,” he said.
I took a deep breath. “Emmett, how do you feel about a little bet?”
He was on his feet at once. “Awesome. Bring it.”
I bit my lip for a second. He was just so huge.
“Unless you’re too afraid… ?” Emmett suggested.
I squared my shoulders. “You. Me. Arm-wrestling. Dining room table. Now.”
Emmett’s grin stretched across his face.
“Er, Bella,” Alice said quickly, “I think Esme is fairly fond of that table. It’s an
antique.”
“Thanks,” Esme mouthed at her.
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“No problem,” Emmett said with a gleaming smile. “Right this way, Bella.”
I followed him out the back, toward the garage; I could hear all the others trailing
behind. There was a largish granite boulder standing up out of a tumble of rocks
near the river, obviously Emmett’s goal. Though the big rock was a little rounded
and irregular, it would do the job.
Emmett placed his elbow on the rock and waved me forward.
I was nervous again as I watched the thick muscles in Emmett’s arm roll, but I
kept my face smooth. Edward had promised I would be stronger than anyone for
a while. He seemed very confident about this, and I felt strong. That strong? I
wondered, looking at Emmett’s biceps. I wasn’t even two days old, though, and
that ought to count for something. Unless nothing was normal about me. Maybe I
wasn’t as strong as a normal newborn. Maybe that’s why control was so easy for
me.
I tried to look unconcerned as I set my elbow against the stone.
“Okay, Emmett. I win, and you cannot say one more word about my sex life to
anyone, not even Rose. No allusions, no innuendos—no nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “Deal. I win, and it’s going to get a lot worse.”
He heard my breath stop and grinned evilly. There was no hint of bluff in his
eyes.
“You gonna back down so easy, little sister?” Emmett taunted. “Not much wild
about you, is there? I bet that cottage doesn’t have a scratch.” He laughed. “Did
Edward tell you how many houses Rose and I smashed?”
I gritted my teeth and grabbed his big hand. “One, two—”
“Three,” he grunted, and shoved against my hand.
Nothing happened.
Oh, I could feel the force he was exerting. My new mind seemed pretty good at all
kinds of calculations, and so I could tell that if he wasn’t meeting any resistance,
his hand would have pounded right through the rock without difficulty. The
pressure increased, and I wondered randomly if a cement truck doing forty miles
an hour down a sharp decline would have similar power. Fifty miles an hour?
Sixty? Probably more.
It wasn’t enough to move me. His hand shoved against mine with crushing force,
but it wasn’t unpleasant. It felt kind of good in a weird way. I’d been so very
careful since the last time I woke up, trying so hard not to break things. It was a
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strange relief to use my muscles. To let the strength flow rather than struggling to
restrain it.
Emmett grunted; his forehead creased and his whole body strained in one rigid
line toward the obstacle of my unmoving hand. I let him sweat—figuratively—for
a moment while I enjoyed the sensation of the crazy force running through my
arm.
A few seconds, though, and I was a little bored with it. I flexed; Emmett lost an
inch.
I laughed. Emmett snarled harshly through his teeth.
“Just keep your mouth shut,” I reminded him, and then I smashed his hand into
the boulder. A deafening crack echoed off the trees. The rock shuddered, and a
piece—about an eighth of the mass—broke off at an invisible fault line and
crashed to the ground. It fell on Emmett’s foot, and I snickered. I could hear
Jacob’s and Edward’s muffled laughter.
Emmett kicked the rock fragment across the river. It sliced a young maple in half
before thudding into the base of a big fir, which swayed and then fell into another
tree.
“Rematch. Tomorrow.”
“It’s not going to wear off that fast,” I told him. “Maybe you ought to give it a
month.”
Emmett growled, flashing his teeth. “Tomorrow.”
“Hey, whatever makes you happy, big brother.”
As he turned to stalk away, Emmett punched the granite, shattering off an
avalanche of shards and powder. It was kind of neat, in a childish way.
Fascinated by the undeniable proof that I was stronger than the strongest
vampire I’d ever known, I placed my hand, fingers spread wide, against the rock.
Then I dug my fingers slowly into the stone, crushing rather than digging; the
consistency reminded me of hard cheese. I ended up with a handful of gravel.
“Cool,” I mumbled.
With a grin stretching my face, I whirled in a sudden circle and karate-chopped
the rock with the side of my hand. The stone shrieked and groaned and—with a
big poof of dust—split in two.
I started giggling.
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I didn’t pay much attention to the chuckles behind me while I punched and
kicked the rest of the boulder into fragments. I was having too much fun,
snickering away the whole time. It wasn’t until I heard a new little giggle, a highpitched
peal of bells, that I turned away from my silly game.
“Did she just laugh?”
Everyone was staring at Renesmee with the same dumbstruck expression that
must have been on my face.
“Yes,” Edward said.
“Who wasn’t laughing?” Jake muttered, rolling his eyes.
“Tell me you didn’t let go a bit on your first run, dog,” Edward teased, no
antagonism in his voice at all.
“That’s different,” Jacob said, and I watched in surprise as he mock-punched
Edward’s shoulder. “Bella’s supposed to be a grown-up. Married and a mom and
all that. Shouldn’t there be more dignity?”
Renesmee frowned, and touched Edward’s face.
“What does she want?” I asked.
“Less dignity,” Edward said with a grin. “She was having almost as much fun
watching you enjoy yourself as I was.”
“Am I funny?” I asked Renesmee, darting back and reaching for her at the same
time that she reached for me. I took her out of Edward’s arms and offered her the
shard of rock in my hand. “You want to try?”
She smiled her glittering smile and took the stone in both hands. She squeezed, a
little dent forming between her eyebrows as she concentrated.
There was a tiny grinding sound, and a bit of dust. She frowned, and held the
chunk up to me.
“I’ll get it,” I said, pinching the stone into sand.
She clapped and laughed; the delicious sound of it made us all join in.
The sun suddenly burst through the clouds, shooting long beams of ruby and gold
across the ten of us, and I was immediately lost in the beauty of my skin in the
light of the sunset. Dazed by it.
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Renesmee stroked the smooth diamond-bright facets, then laid her arm next to
mine. Her skin had just a faint luminosity, subtle and mysterious. Nothing that
would keep her inside on a sunny day like my glowing sparkle. She touched my
face, thinking of the difference and feeling disgruntled.
“You’re the prettiest,” I assured her.
“I’m not sure I can agree to that,” Edward said, and when I turned to answer him,
the sunlight on his face stunned me into silence.
Jacob had his hand in front of his face, pretending to shield his eyes from the
glare. “Freaky Bella,” he commented.
“What an amazing creature she is,” Edward murmured, almost in agreement, as if
Jacob’s comment was meant as a compliment. He was both dazzling and dazzled.
It was a strange feeling—not surprising, I supposed, since everything felt strange
now—this being a natural at something. As a human, I’d never been best at
anything. I was okay at dealing with Renée, but probably lots of people could
have done better; Phil seemed to be holding his own. I was a good student, but
never the top of the class. Obviously, I could be counted out of anything athletic.
Not artistic or musical, no particular talents to brag of. Nobody ever gave away a
trophy for reading books. After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to
being average. I realized now that I’d long ago given up any aspirations of shining
at anything. I just did the best with what I had, never quite fitting into my world.
So this was really different. I was amazing now—to them and to myself. It was
like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also
made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the
place I shined.
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27. TRAVEL PLANS
I took mythology a lot more seriously since I’d become a vampire.
Often, when I looked back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagined
how the thread of my life might look in the Fates’ loom—who knew but that it
actually existed? I was sure my thread must have changed color; I thought it had
probably started out as a nice beige, something supportive and nonconfrontational,
something that would look good in the background. Now it felt
like it must be bright crimson, or maybe glistening gold.
The tapestry of family and friends that wove together around me was a beautiful,
glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors.
I was surprised by some of the threads I got to include in my life. The werewolves,
with their deep, woodsy colors, were not something I’d expected; Jacob, of
course, and Seth, too. But my old friends Quil and Embry became part of the
fabric as they joined Jacob’s pack, and even Sam and Emily were cordial. The
tensions between our families eased, mostly due to Renesmee. She was easy to
love.
Sue and Leah Clearwater were interlaced into our life, too—two more I had not
anticipated.
Sue seemed to have taken it on herself to smooth Charlie’s transition into the
world of make-believe. She came with him to the Cullens’ most days, though she
never seemed truly comfortable here the way her son and most of Jake’s pack did.
She did not speak often; she just hovered protectively near Charlie. She was
always the first person he looked to when Renesmee did something disturbingly
advanced—which was often. In answer, Sue would eye Seth meaningfully as if to
say, Yeah, tell me about it.
Leah was even less comfortable than Sue and was the only part of our recently
extended family who was openly hostile to the merger. However, she and Jacob
had a new camaraderie that kept her close to us all. I asked him about it once—
hesitantly; I didn’t want to pry, but the relationship was so different from the way
it used to be that it made me curious. He shrugged and told me it was a pack
thing. She was his second-in-command now, his “beta,” as I’d called it once long
ago.
“I figured as long as I was going to do this Alpha thing for real,” Jacob explained,
“I’d better nail down the formalities.”
The new responsibility made Leah feel the need to check in with him often, and
since he was always with Renesmee…
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Leah was not happy to be near us, but she was the exception. Happiness was the
main component in my life now, the dominant pattern in the tapestry. So much
so that my relationship with Jasper was now much closer than I’d ever dreamed it
would be.
At first I was really annoyed, though.
“Yeesh!” I complained to Edward one night after we’d put Renesmee in her
wrought-iron crib. “If I haven’t killed Charlie or Sue yet, it’s probably not going to
happen. I wish Jasper would stop hovering all the time!”
“No one doubts you, Bella, not in the slightest,” he assured me. “You know how
Jasper is—he can’t resist a good emotional climate. You’re so happy all the time,
love, he gravitates toward you without thinking.”
And then Edward hugged me tightly, because nothing pleased him more than my
overwhelming ecstasy in this new life.
And I was euphoric the vast majority of the time. The days were not long enough
for me to get my fill of adoring my daughter; the nights did not have enough
hours to satisfy my need for Edward.
There was a flipside to the joy, though. If you turned the fabric of our lives over, I
imagined the design on the backside would be woven in the bleak grays of doubt
and fear.
Renesmee spoke her first word when she was exactly one week old. The word was
Momma, which would have made my day, except that I was so frightened by her
progress I could barely force my frozen face to smile back at her. It didn’t help
that she continued from her first word to her first sentence in the same breath.
“Momma, where is Grandpa?” she’d asked in a clear, high soprano, only
bothering to speak aloud because I was across the room from her. She’d already
asked Rosalie, using her normal (or seriously abnormal, from another point of
view) means of communication. Rosalie hadn’t known the answer, so Renesmee
had turned to me.
When she walked for the first time, fewer than three weeks later, it was similar.
She’d simply stared at Alice for a long moment, watching intently as her aunt
arranged bouquets in the vases scattered around the room, dancing back and
forth across the floor with her arms full of flowers. Renesmee got to her feet, not
in the least bit shaky, and crossed the floor almost as gracefully.
Jacob had burst into applause, because that was clearly the response Renesmee
wanted. The way he was tied to her made his own reactions secondary; his first
reflex was always to give Renesmee whatever she needed. But our eyes met, and I
saw all the panic in mine echoed in his. I made my hands clap together, too,
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trying to hide my fear from her. Edward applauded quietly at my side, and we
didn’t need to speak our thoughts to know they were the same.
Edward and Carlisle threw themselves into research, looking for any answers,
anything to expect. There was very little to be found, and none of it verifiable.
Alice and Rosalie usually began our day with a fashion show. Renesmee never
wore the same clothes twice, partly because she outgrew her clothes almost
immediately and partly because Alice and Rosalie were trying to create a baby
album that appeared to span years rather than weeks. They took thousands of
pictures, documenting every phase of her accelerated childhood.
At three months, Renesmee could have been a big one-year-old, or a small twoyear-
old. She wasn’t shaped exactly like a toddler; she was leaner and more
graceful, her proportions were more even, like an adult’s. Her bronze ringlets
hung to her waist; I couldn’t bear to cut them, even if Alice would have allowed it.
Renesmee could speak with flawless grammar and articulation, but she rarely
bothered, preferring to simply show people what she wanted. She could not only
walk but run and dance. She could even read.
I’d been reading Tennyson to her one night, because the flow and rhythm of his
poetry seemed restful. (I had to search constantly for new material; Renesmee
didn’t like repetition in her bedtime stories as other children supposedly did, and
she had no patience for picture books.) She reached up to touch my cheek, the
image in her mind one of us, only with her holding the book. I gave it to her,
smiling.
“ ‘There is sweet music here,’” she read without hesitation, “‘that softer falls than
petals from blown roses on the grass, or night-dews on still waters between walls
of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass—’ ”
My hand was robotic as I took the book back.
“If you read, how will you fall asleep?” I asked in a voice that had barely escaped
shaking.
By Carlisle’s calculations, the growth of her body was gradually slowing; her mind
continued to race on ahead. Even if the rate of decrease held steady, she’d still be
an adult in no more than four years.
Four years. And an old woman by fifteen.
Just fifteen years of life.
But she was so healthy. Vital, bright, glowing, and happy. Her conspicuous wellbeing
made it easy for me to be happy with her in the moment and leave the
future for tomorrow.
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Carlisle and Edward discussed our options for the future from every angle in low
voices that I tried not to hear. They never had these discussions when Jacob was
around, because there was one sure way to halt aging, and that wasn’t something
Jacob was likely to be excited about. I wasn’t. Too dangerous! my instincts
screamed at me. Jacob and Renesmee seemed alike in so many ways, both halfand-
half beings, two things at the same time. And all the werewolf lore insisted
that vampire venom was a death sentence rather than a course to immortality. . . .
Carlisle and Edward had exhausted the research they could do from a distance,
and now we were preparing to follow old legends at their source. We were going
back to Brazil, starting there. The Ticunas had legends about children like
Renesmee.… If other children like her had ever existed, perhaps some tale of the
life span of half-mortal children still lingered. . . .
The only real question left was exactly when we would go.
I was the holdup. A small part of it was that I wanted to stay near Forks until after
the holidays, for Charlie’s sake. But more than that, there was a different journey
that I knew had to come first—that was the clear priority. Also, it had to be a solo
trip.
This was the only argument that Edward and I had gotten in since I’d become a
vampire. The main point of contention was the “solo” part. But the facts were
what they were, and my plan was the only one that made rational sense. I had to
go see the Volturi, and I had to do it absolutely alone.
Even freed from old nightmares, from any dreams at all, it was impossible to
forget the Volturi. Nor did they leave us without reminders.
Until the day that Aro’s present showed up, I didn’t know that Alice had sent a
wedding announcement to the Volturi leaders; we’d been far away on Esme’s
island when she’d seen a vision of Volturi soldiers—Jane and Alec, the
devastatingly powerful twins, among them. Caius was planning to send a hunting
party to see if I was still human, against their edict (because I knew about the
secret vampire world, I either must join it or be silenced… permanently). So Alice
had mailed the announcement, seeing that this would delay them as they
deciphered the meaning behind it. But they would come eventually. That was
certain.
The present itself was not overtly threatening. Extravagant, yes, almost
frightening in that very extravagance. The threat was in the parting line of Aro’s
congratulatory note, written in black ink on a square of heavy, plain white paper
in Aro’s own hand:
I so look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person.
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The gift was presented in an ornately carved, ancient wooden box inlaid with gold
and mother-of-pearl, ornamented with a rainbow of gemstones. Alice said the
box itself was a priceless treasure, that it would have outshone just about any
piece of jewelry besides the one inside it.
“I always wondered where the crown jewels disappeared to after John of England
pawned them in the thirteenth century,” Carlisle said. “I suppose it doesn’t
surprise me that the Volturi have their share.”
The necklace was simple—gold woven into a thick rope of a chain, almost scaled,
like a smooth snake that would curl close around the throat. One jewel hung
suspended from the rope: a white diamond the size of a golf ball.
The unsubtle reminder in Aro’s note interested me more than the jewel. The
Volturi needed to see that I was immortal, that the Cullens had been obedient to
the Volturi’s orders, and they needed to see this soon. They could not be allowed
near Forks. There was only one way to keep our life here safe.
“You’re not going alone,” Edward had insisted through his teeth, his hands
clenching into fists.
“They won’t hurt me,” I’d said as soothingly as I could manage, forcing my voice
to sound sure. “They have no reason to. I’m a vampire. Case closed.”
“No. Absolutely no.”
“Edward, it’s the only way to protect her.”
And he hadn’t been able to argue with that. My logic was watertight.
Even in the short time I’d known Aro, I’d been able to see that he was a
collector—and his most prized treasures were his living pieces. He coveted
beauty, talent, and rarity in his immortal followers more than any jewel locked in
his vaults. It was unfortunate enough that he’d begun to covet Alice’s and
Edward’s abilities. I would give him no more reason to be jealous of Carlisle’s
family. Renesmee was beautiful and gifted and unique—she was one of a kind. He
could not be allowed to see her, not even through someone’s thoughts.
And I was the only one whose thoughts he could not hear. Of course I would go
alone.
Alice did not see any trouble with my trip, but she was worried by the indistinct
quality of her visions. She said they were sometimes similarly hazy when there
were outside decisions that might conflict but that had not been solidly resolved.
This uncertainty made Edward, already hesitant, extremely opposed to what I
had to do. He wanted to come with me as far as my connection in London, but I
wouldn’t leave Renesmee without both her parents. Carlisle was coming instead.
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It made both Edward and me a little more relaxed, knowing that Carlisle would
be only a few hours away from me.
Alice kept searching for the future, but the things she found were unrelated to
what she was looking for. A new trend in the stock market; a possible visit of
reconciliation from Irina, though her decision was not firm; a snowstorm that
wouldn’t hit for another six weeks; a call from Renée (I was practicing my
“rough” voice, and getting better at it every day—to Renée’s knowledge, I was still
sick, but mending).
We bought the tickets for Italy the day after Renesmee turned three months. I
planned for it to be a very short trip, so I hadn’t told Charlie about it. Jacob knew,
and he took Edward’s view on things. However, today the argument was about
Brazil. Jacob was determined to come with us.
The three of us, Jacob, Renesmee, and I, were hunting together. The diet of
animal blood wasn’t Renesmee’s favorite thing—and that was why Jacob was
allowed to come along. Jacob had made it a contest between them, and that made
her more willing than anything else.
Renesmee was quite clear on the whole good vs. bad as it applied to hunting
humans; she just thought that donated blood made a nice compromise. Human
food filled her and it seemed compatible with her system, but she reacted to all
varieties of solid food with the same martyred endurance I had once given
cauliflower and lima beans. Animal blood was better than that, at least. She had a
competitive nature, and the challenge of beating Jacob made her excited to hunt.
“Jacob,” I said, trying to reason with him again while Renesmee danced ahead of
us into the long clearing, searching for a scent she liked. “You’ve got obligations
here. Seth, Leah—”
He snorted. “I’m not my pack’s nanny. They’ve all got responsibilities in La Push
anyway.”
“Sort of like you? Are you officially dropping out of high school, then? If you’re
going to keep up with Renesmee, you’re going to have to study a lot harder.”
“It’s just a sabbatical. I’ll get back to school when things… slow down.”
I lost my concentration on my side of the disagreement when he said that, and we
both automatically looked at Renesmee. She was staring at the snowflakes
fluttering high above her head, melting before they could stick to the yellowed
grass in the long arrowhead-shaped meadow that we were standing in. Her
ruffled ivory dress was just a shade darker than the snow, and her reddish-brown
curls managed to shimmer, though the sun was buried deeply behind the clouds.
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As we watched, she crouched for an instant and then sprang fifteen feet up into
the air. Her little hands closed around a flake, and she dropped lightly to her feet.
She turned to us with her shocking smile—truly, it wasn’t something you could
get used to—and opened her hands to show us the perfectly formed eight-pointed
ice star in her palm before it melted.
“Pretty,” Jacob called to her appreciatively. “But I think you’re stalling, Nessie.”
She bounded back to Jacob; he held his arms out at exactly the moment she
leaped into them. They had the move perfectly synchronized. She did this when
she had something to say. She still preferred not to speak aloud.
Renesmee touched his face, scowling adorably as we all listened to the sound of a
small herd of elk moving farther into the wood.
“Suuuure you’re not thirsty, Nessie,” Jacob answered a little sarcastically, but
more indulgently than anything else. “You’re just afraid I’ll catch the biggest one
again!”
She flipped backward out of Jacob’s arms, landing lightly on her feet, and rolled
her eyes—she looked so much like Edward when she did that. Then she darted off
toward the trees.
“Got it,” Jacob said when I leaned as if to follow. He yanked his t-shirt off as he
charged after her into the forest, already trembling. “It doesn’t count if you
cheat,” he called to Renesmee.
I smiled at the leaves they left fluttering behind them, shaking my head. Jacob
was more a child than Renesmee sometimes.
I paused, giving my hunters a few minutes’ head start. It would be beyond simple
to track them, and Renesmee would love to surprise me with the size of her prey.
I smiled again.
The narrow meadow was very still, very empty. The fluttering snow was thinning
above me, almost gone. Alice had seen that it wouldn’t stick for many weeks.
Usually Edward and I came together on these hunting trips. But Edward was with
Carlisle today, planning the trip to Rio, talking behind Jacob’s back.… I frowned.
When I returned, I would take Jacob’s side. He should come with us. He had as
big a stake in this as any of us—his entire life was at stake, just like mine.
While my thoughts were lost in the near future, my eyes swept the mountainside
routinely, searching for prey, searching for danger. I didn’t think about it; the
urge was an automatic thing.
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Or perhaps there was a reason for my scanning, some tiny trigger that my razorsharp
senses had caught before I realized it consciously.
As my eyes flitted across the edge of a distant cliff, standing out starkly blue-gray
against the green-black forest, a glint of silver—or was it gold?—gripped my
attention.
My gaze zeroed in on the color that shouldn’t have been there, so far away in the
haze that an eagle wouldn’t have been able to make it out. I stared.
She stared back.
That she was a vampire was obvious. Her skin was marble white, the texture a
million times smoother than human skin. Even under the clouds, she glistened
ever so slightly. If her skin had not given her away, her stillness would have. Only
vampires and statues could be so perfectly motionless.
Her hair was pale, pale blond, almost silver. This was the gleam that had caught
my eye. It hung straight as a ruler to a blunt edge at her chin, parted evenly down
the center.
She was a stranger to me. I was absolutely certain I’d never seen her before, even
as a human. None of the faces in my muddy memory were the same as this one.
But I knew her at once from her dark golden eyes.
Irina had decided to come after all.
For one moment I stared at her, and she stared back. I wondered if she would
guess immediately who I was as well. I half-raised my hand, about to wave, but
her lip twisted the tiniest bit, making her face suddenly hostile.
I heard Renesmee’s cry of victory from the forest, heard Jacob’s echoing howl,
and saw Irina’s face jerk reflexively to the sound when it echoed to her a few
seconds later. Her gaze cut slightly to the right, and I knew what she was seeing.
An enormous russet werewolf, perhaps the very one who had killed her Laurent.
How long had she been watching us? Long enough to see our affectionate
exchange before, I was sure.
Her face spasmed in pain.
Instinctually, I opened my hands in front of me in an apologetic gesture. She
turned back to me, and her lip curled back over her teeth. Her jaw unlocked as
she growled.
When the faint sound reached me, she had already turned and disappeared into
the forest.
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“Crap!” I groaned.
I sprinted into the forest after Renesmee and Jacob, unwilling to have them out
of my sight. I didn’t know which direction Irina had taken, or exactly how furious
she was right now. Vengeance was a common obsession for vampires, one that
was not easy to suppress.
Running at full speed, it only took me two seconds to reach them.
“Mine is bigger,” I heard Renesmee insist as I burst through the thick
thornbushes to the small open space where they stood.
Jacob’s ears flattened as he took in my expression; he crouched forward, baring
his teeth—his muzzle was streaked with blood from his kill. His eyes raked the
forest. I could hear the growl building in his throat.
Renesmee was every bit as alert as Jacob. Abandoning the dead stag at her feet,
she leaped into my waiting arms, pressing her curious hands against my cheeks.
“I’m overreacting,” I assured them quickly. “It’s okay, I think. Hold on.”
I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial. Edward answered on the first
ring. Jacob and Renesmee listened intently to my side as I filled Edward in.
“Come, bring Carlisle,” I trilled so fast I wondered if Jacob could keep up. “I saw
Irina, and she saw me, but then she saw Jacob and she got mad and ran away, I
think. She hasn’t shown up here—yet, anyway—but she looked pretty upset so
maybe she will. If she doesn’t, you and Carlisle have to go after her and talk to
her. I feel so bad.”
Jacob rumbled.
“We’ll be there in half a minute,” Edward assured me, and I could hear the
whoosh of the wind his running made.
We darted back to the long meadow and then waited silently as Jacob and I
listened carefully for the sound of an approach we did not recognize.
When the sound came, though, it was very familiar. And then Edward was at my
side, Carlisle a few seconds behind. I was surprised to hear the heavy pad of big
paws following behind Carlisle. I supposed I shouldn’t have been shocked. With
Renesmee in even a hint of danger, of course Jacob would call in reinforcements.
“She was up on that ridge,” I told them at once, pointing out the spot. If Irina was
fleeing, she already had quite a head start. Would she stop and listen to Carlisle?
Her expression before made me think not. “Maybe you should call Emmett and
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Jasper and have them come with you. She looked… really upset. She growled at
me.”
“What?” Edward said angrily.
Carlisle put a hand on his arm. “She’s grieving. I’ll go after her.”
“I’m coming with you,” Edward insisted.
They exchanged a long glance—perhaps Carlisle was measuring Edward’s
irritation with Irina against his helpfulness as a mind reader. Finally, Carlisle
nodded, and they took off to find the trail without calling for Jasper or Emmett.
Jacob huffed impatiently and poked my back with his nose. He must want
Renesmee back at the safety of the house, just in case. I agreed with him on that,
and we hurried home with Seth and Leah running at our flanks.
Renesmee was complacent in my arms, one hand still resting on my face. Since
the hunting trip had been aborted, she would just have to make do with donated
blood. Her thoughts were a little smug.
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28. THE FUTURE
Carlisle and Edward had not been able to catch up with Irina before her trail
disappeared into the sound. They’d swum to the other bank to see if her trail had
picked up in a straight line, but there was no trace of her for miles in either
direction on the eastern shore.
It was all my fault. She had come, as Alice had seen, to make peace with the
Cullens, only to be angered by my camaraderie with Jacob. I wished I’d noticed
her earlier, before Jacob had phased. I wished we’d gone hunting somewhere
else.
There wasn’t much to be done. Carlisle had called Tanya with the disappointing
news. Tanya and Kate hadn’t seen Irina since they’d decided to come to my
wedding, and they were distraught that Irina had come so close and yet not
returned home; it wasn’t easy for them to lose their sister, however temporary the
separation might be. I wondered if this brought back hard memories of losing
their mother so many centuries ago.
Alice was able to catch a few glimpses of Irina’s immediate future, nothing too
concrete. She wasn’t going back to Denali, as far as Alice could tell. The picture
was hazy. All Alice could see was that Irina was visibly upset; she wandered in the
snow-swathed wilderness—to the north? To the east?—with a devastated
expression. She made no decisions for a new course beyond her directionless
grieving.
Days passed and, though of course I forgot nothing, Irina and her pain moved to
the back of my mind. There were more important things to think of now. I would
leave for Italy in just a few days. When I got back, we’d all be off to South
America.
Every detail had been gone over a hundred times already. We would start with
the Ticunas, tracing their legends as well as we could at the source. Now that it
was accepted that Jacob would come with us, he figured prominently in the
plans—it was unlikely that the people who believed in vampires would speak to
any of us about their stories. If we dead-ended with the Ticunas, there were many
closely related tribes in the area to research. Carlisle had some old friends in the
Amazon; if we could find them, they might have information for us, too. Or at
least a suggestion as to where else we might go for answers. It was unlikely that
the three Amazon vampires had anything to do with the legends of vampire
hybrids themselves, as they were all female. There was no way to know how long
our search would take.
I hadn’t told Charlie about the longer trip yet, and I stewed about what to say to
him while Edward and Carlisle’s discussion went on. How to break the news to
him just right?
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I stared at Renesmee while I debated internally. She was curled up on the sofa
now, her breathing slow with heavy sleep, her tangled curls splayed wildly around
her face. Usually, Edward and I took her back to our cottage to put her to bed, but
tonight we lingered with the family, he and Carlisle deep in their planning
session.
Meanwhile, Emmett and Jasper were more excited about planning the hunting
possibilities. The Amazon offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and
panthers, for example. Emmett had a whim to wrestle with an anaconda. Esme
and Rosalie were planning what they would pack. Jacob was off with Sam’s pack,
setting things up for his own absence.
Alice moved slowly—for her—around the big room, unnecessarily tidying the
already immaculate space, straightening Esme’s perfectly hung garlands. She was
re-centering Esme’s vases on the console at the moment. I could see from the way
her face fluctuated—aware, then blank, then aware again—that she was searching
the future. I assumed she was trying to see through the blind spots that Jacob and
Renesmee made in her visions as to what was waiting for us in South America
until Jasper said, “Let it go, Alice; she’s not our concern,” and a cloud of serenity
stole silently and invisibly through the room. Alice must have been worrying
about Irina again.
She stuck her tongue out at Jasper and then lifted one crystal vase that was filled
with white and red roses and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest
hint of wilt to one of the white flowers, but Alice seemed intent on utter
perfection as a distraction to her lack of vision tonight.
Staring at Renesmee again, I didn’t see it when the vase slipped from Alice’s
fingers. I only heard the whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal, and my eyes
flickered up in time to see the vase shatter into ten thousand diamond shards
against the edge of the kitchen’s marble floor.
We were perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced and skittered in every
direction with an unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Alice’s back.
My first illogical thought was that Alice was playing some joke on us. Because
there was no way that Alice could have dropped the vase by accident. I could have
darted across the room to catch the vase in plenty of time myself, if I hadn’t
assumed she would get it. And how would it fall through her fingers in the first
place? Her perfectly sure fingers…
I had never seen a vampire drop anything by accident. Ever.
And then Alice was facing us, twisting in a move so fast it didn’t exist.
Her eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring,
filling her thin face till they seemed to overflow it. Looking into her eyes was like
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looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried in the terror and despair and
agony of her gaze.
I heard Edward gasp; it was a broken, half-choked sound.
“What?” Jasper growled, leaping to her side in a blurred rush of movement,
crushing the broken crystal under his feet. He grabbed her shoulders and shook
her sharply. She seemed to rattle silently in his hands. “What, Alice?”
Emmett moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted
toward the window, anticipating an attack.
There was only silence from Esme, Carlisle, and Rose, who were frozen just as I
was.
Jasper shook Alice again. “What is it?”
“They’re coming for us,” Alice and Edward whispered together, perfectly
synchronized. “All of them.”
Silence.
For once, I was the quickest to understand—because something in their words
triggered my own vision. It was only the distant memory of a dream—faint,
transparent, indistinct as if I were peering through thick gauze.… In my head, I
saw a line of black advancing on me, the ghost of my half-forgotten human
nightmare. I could not see the glint of their ruby eyes in the shrouded image, or
the shine of their sharp wet teeth, but I knew where the gleam should be. . . .
Stronger than the memory of the sight came the memory of the feel—the
wrenching need to protect the precious thing behind me.
I wanted to snatch Renesmee up into my arms, to hide her behind my skin and
hair, to make her invisible. But I couldn’t even turn to look at her. I felt not like
stone but ice. For the first time since I’d been reborn a vampire, I felt cold.
I barely heard the confirmation of my fears. I didn’t need it. I already knew.
“The Volturi,” Alice moaned.
“All of them,” Edward groaned at the same time.
“Why?” Alice whispered to herself. “How?”
“When?” Edward whispered.
“Why?” Esme echoed.
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“When?” Jasper repeated in a voice like splintering ice.
Alice’s eyes didn’t blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became
perfectly blank. Only her mouth held on to her expression of horror.
“Not long,” she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. “There’s snow
on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month.”
“Why?” Carlisle was the one to ask this time.
Esme answered. “They must have a reason. Maybe to see . . .”
“This isn’t about Bella,” Alice said hollowly. “They’re all coming—Aro, Caius,
Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives.”
“The wives never leave the tower,” Jasper contradicted her in a flat voice. “Never.
Not during the southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow
them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never.”
“They’re coming now,” Edward whispered.
“But why?” Carlisle said again. “We’ve done nothing! And if we had, what could
we possibly do that would bring this down on us?”
“There are so many of us,” Edward answered dully. “They must want to make
sure that . . .” He didn’t finish.
“That doesn’t answer the crucial question! Why?”
I felt I knew the answer to Carlisle’s question, and yet at the same time I didn’t.
Renesmee was the reason why, I was sure. Somehow I’d known from the very
beginning that they would come for her. My subconscious had warned me before
I’d known I was carrying her. It felt oddly expected now. As if I’d somehow
always known that the Volturi would come to take my happiness from me.
But that still didn’t answer the question.
“Go back, Alice,” Jasper pleaded. “Look for the trigger. Search.”
Alice shook her head slowly, her shoulders sagging. “It came out of nowhere,
Jazz. I wasn’t looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She
wasn’t where I expected her to be. . . .” Alice trailed off, her eyes drifting again.
She stared at nothing for a long second.
And then her head jerked up, her eyes hard as flint. I heard Edward catch his
breath.
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“She decided to go to them,” Alice said. “Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And
then they will decide.… It’s as if they’re waiting for her. Like their decision was
already made, and just waiting on her. . . .”
It was silent again as we digested this. What would Irina tell the Volturi that
would result in Alice’s appalling vision?
“Can we stop her?” Jasper asked.
“There’s no way. She’s almost there.”
“What is she doing?” Carlisle was asking, but I wasn’t paying attention to the
discussion now. All my focus was on the picture that was painstakingly coming
together in my head.
I pictured Irina poised on the cliff, watching. What had she seen? A vampire and
a werewolf who were best friends. I’d been focused on that image, one that would
obviously explain her reaction. But that was not all that she’d seen.
She’d also seen a child. An exquisitely beautiful child, showing off in the falling
snow, clearly more than human…
Irina… the orphaned sisters… Carlisle had said that losing their mother to the
Volturi’s justice had made Tanya, Kate, and Irina purists when it came to the law.
Just half a minute ago, Jasper had said the words himself: Not even when they
were hunting the immortal children.… The immortal children—the
unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo…
With Irina’s past, how could she apply any other reading to what she’d seen that
day in the narrow field? She had not been close enough to hear Renesmee’s heart,
to feel the heat radiating from her body. Renesmee’s rosy cheeks could have been
a trick on our part for all she knew.
After all, the Cullens were in league with werewolves. From Irina’s point of view,
maybe this meant nothing was beyond us.…
Irina, wringing her hands in the snowy wilderness—not mourning Laurent, after
all, but knowing it was her duty to turn the Cullens in, knowing what would
happen to them if she did. Apparently her conscience had won out over the
centuries of friendship.
And the Volturi’s response to this kind of infraction was so automatic, it was
already decided.
I turned and draped myself over Renesmee’s sleeping body, covering her with my
hair, burying my face in her curls.
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“Think of what she saw that afternoon,” I said in a low voice, interrupting
whatever Emmett was beginning to say. “To someone who’d lost a mother
because of the immortal children, what would Renesmee look like?”
Everything was silent again as the others caught up to where I was already.
“An immortal child,” Carlisle whispered.
I felt Edward kneel beside me, wrap his arms over us both.
“But she’s wrong,” I went on. “Renesmee isn’t like those other children. They
were frozen, but she grows so much every day. They were out of control, but she
never hurts Charlie or Sue or even shows them things that would upset them. She
can control herself. She’s already smarter than most adults. There would be no
reason. . . .”
I babbled on, waiting for someone to exhale with relief, waiting for the icy tension
in the room to relax as they realized I was right. The room just seemed to get
colder. Eventually my small voice trailed off into silence.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Edward whispered into my hair. “It’s not the kind of crime they hold a trial
for, love,” he said quietly. “Aro’s seen Irina’s proof in her thoughts. They come to
destroy, not to be reasoned with.”
“But they’re wrong,” I said stubbornly.
“They won’t wait for us to show them that.”
His voice was still quiet, gentle, velvet… and yet the pain and desolation in the
sound was unavoidable. His voice was like Alice’s eyes before—like the inside of a
tomb.
“What can we do?” I demanded.
Renesmee was so warm and perfect in my arms, dreaming peacefully. I’d worried
so much about Renesmee’s speeding age—worried that she would only have little
over a decade of life.… That terror seemed ironic now.
Little over a month…
Was this the limit, then? I’d had more happiness than most people ever
experienced. Was there some natural law that demanded equal shares of
happiness and misery in the world? Was my joy overthrowing the balance? Was
four months all I could have?
403
It was Emmett who answered my rhetorical question.
“We fight,” he said calmly.
“We can’t win,” Jasper growled. I could imagine how his face would look, how his
body would curve protectively over Alice’s.
“Well, we can’t run. Not with Demetri around.” Emmett made a disgusted noise,
and I knew instinctively that he was not upset by the idea of the Volturi’s tracker
but by the idea of running away. “And I don’t know that we can’t win,” he said.
“There are a few options to consider. We don’t have to fight alone.”
My head snapped up at that. “We don’t have to sentence the Quileutes to death,
either, Emmett!”
“Chill, Bella.” His expression was no different from when he was contemplating
fighting anacondas. Even the threat of annihilation couldn’t change Emmett’s
perspective, his ability to thrill to a challenge. “I didn’t mean the pack. Be
realistic, though—do you think Jacob or Sam is going to ignore an invasion? Even
if it wasn’t about Nessie? Not to mention that, thanks to Irina, Aro knows about
our alliance with the pack now, too. But I was thinking of our other friends.”
Carlisle echoed me in a whisper. “Other friends we don’t have to sentence to
death.”
“Hey, we’ll let them decide,” Emmett said in a placating tone. “I’m not saying they
have to fight with us.” I could see the plan refining itself in his head as he spoke.
“If they’d just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate.
Bella’s right, after all. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that
might take away any reason for a fight. . . .”
There was a hint of a smile on Emmett’s face now. I was surprised no one had hit
him yet. I wanted to.
“Yes,” Esme said eagerly. “That makes sense, Emmett. All we need is for the
Volturi to pause for one moment. Just long enough to listen.”
“We’d need quite a show of witnesses,” Rosalie said harshly, her voice brittle as
glass.
Esme nodded in agreement, as if she hadn’t heard the sarcasm in Rosalie’s tone.
“We can ask that much of our friends. Just to witness.”
“We’d do it for them,” Emmett said.
“We’ll have to ask them just right,” Alice murmured. I looked to see her eyes were
a dark void again. “They’ll have to be shown very carefully.”
404
“Shown?” Jasper asked.
Alice and Edward both looked down at Renesmee. Then Alice’s eyes glazed over.
“Tanya’s family,” she said. “Siobhan’s coven. Amun’s. Some of the nomads—
Garrett and Mary for certain. Maybe Alistair.”
“What about Peter and Charlotte?” Jasper asked half fearfully, as if he hoped the
answer was no, and his old brother could be spared from the coming carnage.
“Maybe.”
“The Amazons?” Carlisle asked. “Kachiri, Zafrina, and Senna?”
Alice seemed too deep into her vision to answer at first; finally she shuddered,
and her eyes flickered back to the present. She met Carlisle’s gaze for the tiniest
part of a second, and then looked down.
“I can’t see.”
“What was that?” Edward asked, his whisper a demand. “That part in the jungle.
Are we going to look for them?”
“I can’t see,” Alice repeated, not meeting his eyes. A flash of confusion crossed
Edward’s face. “We’ll have to split up and hurry—before the snow sticks to the
ground. We have to round up whomever we can and get them here to show
them.” She zoned again. “Ask Eleazar. There is more to this than just an immortal
child.”
The silence was ominous for another long moment while Alice was in her trance.
She blinked slowly when it was over, her eyes peculiarly opaque despite the fact
that she was clearly in the present.
“There is so much. We have to hurry,” she whispered.
“Alice?” Edward asked. “That was too fast—I didn’t understand. What was—?”
“I can’t see!” she exploded back at him. “Jacob’s almost here!”
Rosalie took a step toward the front door. “I’ll deal with—”
“No, let him come,” Alice said quickly, her voice straining higher with each word.
She grabbed Jasper’s hand and began pulling him toward the back door. “I’ll see
better away from Nessie, too. I need to go. I need to really concentrate. I need to
see everything I can. I have to go. Come on, Jasper, there’s no time to waste!”
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We all could hear Jacob on the stairs. Alice yanked, impatient, on Jasper’s hand.
He followed quickly, confusion in his eyes just like Edward’s. They darted out the
door into the silver night.
“Hurry!” she called back to us. “You have to find them all!”
“Find what?” Jacob asked, shutting the front door behind himself. “Where’d Alice
go?”
No one answered; we all just stared.
Jacob shook the wet from his hair and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his
t-shirt, his eyes on Renesmee. “Hey, Bells! I thought you guys would’ve gone
home by now. . . .”
He looked up to me finally, blinked, and then stared. I watched his expression as
the room’s atmosphere finally touched him. He glanced down, eyes wide, at the
wet spot on the floor, the scattered roses, the fragments of crystal. His fingers
quivered.
“What?” he asked flatly. “What happened?”
I couldn’t think where to begin. No one else found the words, either.
Jacob crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside
Renesmee and me. I could feel the heat shaking off his body as tremors rolled
down his arms to his shaking hands.
“Is she okay?” he demanded, touching her forehead, tilting his head as he listened
to her heart. “Don’t mess with me, Bella, please!”
“Nothing’s wrong with Renesmee,” I choked out, the words breaking in strange
places.
“Then who?”
“All of us, Jacob,” I whispered. And it was there in my voice, too—the sound of
the inside of a grave. “It’s over. We’ve all been sentenced to die.”
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29. DEFECTION
We sat there all night long, statues of horror and grief, and Alice never came
back.
We were all at our limits—frenzied into absolute stillness. Carlisle had barely
been able to move his lips to explain it all to Jacob. The retelling seemed to make
it worse; even Emmett stood silent and still from then on.
It wasn’t until the sun rose and I knew that Renesmee would soon be stirring
under my hands that I wondered for the first time what could possibly be taking
Alice so long. I’d hoped to know more before I was faced with my daughter’s
curiosity. To have some answers. Some tiny, tiny portion of hope so that I could
smile and keep the truth from terrifying her, too.
My face felt permanently set into the fixed mask it had worn all night. I wasn’t
sure I had the ability to smile anymore.
Jacob was snoring in the corner, a mountain of fur on the floor, twitching
anxiously in his sleep. Sam knew everything—the wolves were readying
themselves for what was coming. Not that this preparation would do anything but
get them killed with the rest of my family.
The sunlight broke through the back windows, sparkling on Edward’s skin. My
eyes had not moved from his since Alice’s departure. We’d stared at each other all
night, staring at what neither of us could live through losing: the other. I saw my
reflection glimmer in his agonized eyes as the sun touched my own skin.
His eyebrows moved an infinitesimal bit, then his lips.
“Alice,” he said.
The sound of his voice was like ice cracking as it melted. All of us fractured a
little, softened a little. Moved again.
“She’s been gone a long time,” Rosalie murmured, surprised.
“Where could she be?” Emmett wondered, taking a step toward the door.
Esme put a hand on her arm. “We don’t want to disturb . . .”
“She’s never taken so long before,” Edward said. New worry splintered the mask
his face had become. His features were alive again, his eyes suddenly wide with
fresh fear, extra panic. “Carlisle, you don’t think—something preemptive? Would
Alice have had time to see if they sent someone for her?”
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Aro’s translucent-skinned face filled my head. Aro, who had seen into all the
corners of Alice’s mind, who knew everything she was capable of—
Emmett cussed loud enough that Jacob lurched to his feet with a growl. In the
yard, his growl was echoed by his pack. My family was already a blur of action.
“Stay with Renesmee!” I all but shrieked at Jacob as I sprinted through the door.
I was still stronger than the rest of them, and I used that strength to push myself
forward. I overtook Esme in a few bounds, and Rosalie in just a few strides more.
I raced through the thick forest until I was right behind Edward and Carlisle.
“Would they have been able to surprise her?” Carlisle asked, his voice as even as
if he were standing motionless rather than running at full speed.
“I don’t see how,” Edward answered. “But Aro knows her better than anyone else.
Better than I do.”
“Is this a trap?” Emmett called from behind us.
“Maybe,” Edward said. “There’s no scent but Alice and Jasper. Where were they
going?”
Alice and Jasper’s trail was curling into a wide arc; it stretched first east of the
house, but headed north on the other side of the river, and then back west again
after a few miles. We recrossed the river, all six jumping within a second of each
other. Edward ran in the lead, his concentration total.
“Did you catch that scent?” Esme called ahead a few moments after we’d leaped
the river for the second time. She was the farthest back, on the far left edge of our
hunting party. She gestured to the southeast.
“Keep to the main trail—we’re almost to the Quileute border,” Edward ordered
tersely. “Stay together. See if they turned north or south.”
I was not as familiar with the treaty line as the rest of them, but I could smell the
hint of wolf in the breeze blowing from the east. Edward and Carlisle slowed a
little out of habit, and I could see their heads sweep from side to side, waiting for
the trail to turn.
Then the wolf smell was suddenly stronger, and Edward’s head snapped up. He
came to a sudden stop. The rest of us froze, too.
“Sam?” Edward asked in a flat voice. “What is this?”
Sam came through the trees a few hundred yards away, walking quickly toward
us in his human form, flanked by two big wolves—Paul and Jared. It took Sam a
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while to reach us; his human pace made me impatient. I didn’t want time to think
about what was happening. I wanted to be in motion, to be doing something. I
wanted to have my arms around Alice, to know beyond a doubt that she was safe.
I watched Edward’s face go absolutely white as he read what Sam was thinking.
Sam ignored him, looking straight at Carlisle as he stopped walking and began to
speak.
“Right after midnight, Alice and Jasper came to this place and asked permission
to cross our land to the ocean. I granted them that and escorted them to the coast
myself. They went immediately into the water and did not return. As we
journeyed, Alice told me it was of the utmost importance that I say nothing to
Jacob about seeing her until I spoke to you. I was to wait here for you to come
looking for her and then give you this note. She told me to obey her as if all our
lives depended on it.”
Sam’s face was grim as he held out a folded sheet of paper, printed all over with
small black text. It was a page out of a book; my sharp eyes read the printed
words as Carlisle unfolded it to see the other side. The side facing me was the
copyright page from The Merchant of Venice. A hint of my own scent blew off of
it as Carlisle shook the paper flat. I realized it was a page torn from one of my
books. I’d brought a few things from Charlie’s house to the cottage; a few sets of
normal clothes, all the letters from my mother, and my favorite books. My
tattered collection of Shakespeare paperbacks had been on the bookshelf in the
cottage’s little living room yesterday morning.…
“Alice has decided to leave us,” Carlisle whispered.
“What?” Rosalie cried.
Carlisle turned the page around so that we all could read.
Don’t look for us. There isn’t time to waste. Remember: Tanya,
Siobhan, Amun, Alistair, all the nomads you can find. We’ll seek out
Peter and Charlotte on our way. We’re so sorry that we have to leave
you this way, with no goodbyes or explanations. It’s the only way for
us. We love you.
We stood frozen again, the silence total but for the sound of the wolves’
heartbeats, their breathing. Their thoughts must have been loud, too. Edward
was first to move again, speaking in response to what he heard in Sam’s head.
“Yes, things are that dangerous.”
“Enough that you would abandon your family?” Sam asked out loud, censure in
his tone. It was clear that he had not read the note before giving it to Carlisle. He
was upset now, looking as if he regretted listening to Alice.
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Edward’s expression was stiff—to Sam it probably looked angry or arrogant, but I
could see the shape of pain in the hard planes of his face.
“We don’t know what she saw,” Edward said. “Alice is neither unfeeling nor a
coward. She just has more information than we do.”
“We would not—,” Sam began.
“You are bound differently than we are,” Edward snapped. “We each still have
our free will.”
Sam’s chin jerked up, and his eyes looked suddenly flat black.
“But you should heed the warning,” Edward went on. “This is not something you
want to involve yourselves in. You can still avoid what Alice saw.”
Sam smiled grimly. “We don’t run away.” Behind him, Paul snorted.
“Don’t get your family slaughtered for pride,” Carlisle interjected quietly.
Sam looked at Carlisle with a softer expression. “As Edward pointed out, we don’t
have the same kind of freedom that you have. Renesmee is as much as part of our
family now as she is yours. Jacob cannot abandon her, and we cannot abandon
him.” His eyes flickered to Alice’s note, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
“You don’t know her,” Edward said.
“Do you?” Sam asked bluntly.
Carlisle put a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “We have much to do, son. Whatever
Alice’s decision, we would be foolish not to follow her advice now. Let’s go home
and get to work.”
Edward nodded, his face still rigid with pain. Behind me, I could hear Esme’s
quiet, tearless sobs.
I didn’t know how to cry in this body; I couldn’t do anything but stare. There was
no feeling yet. Everything seemed unreal, like I was dreaming again after all these
months. Having a nightmare.
“Thank you, Sam,” Carlisle said.
“I’m sorry,” Sam answered. “We shouldn’t have let her through.”
“You did the right thing,” Carlisle told him. “Alice is free to do what she will. I
wouldn’t deny her that liberty.”
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I’d always thought of the Cullens as a whole, an indivisible unit. Suddenly, I
remembered that it had not always been so. Carlisle had created Edward, Esme,
Rosalie and Emmett; Edward had created me. We were physically linked by blood
and venom. I never thought of Alice and Jasper as separate—as adopted into the
family. But in truth, Alice had adopted the Cullens. She had shown up with her
unconnected past, bringing Jasper with his, and fit herself into the family that
was already there. Both she and Jasper had known another life outside the Cullen
family. Had she really chosen to lead another new life after she’d seen that life
with the Cullens was over?
We were doomed, then, weren’t we? There was no hope at all. Not one ray, one
flicker that might have convinced Alice she had a chance at our side.
The bright morning air seemed thicker suddenly, blacker, as if physically
darkened by my despair.
“I’m not going down without a fight,” Emmett snarled low under his breath.
“Alice told us what to do. Let’s get it done.”
The others nodded with determined expressions, and I realized that they were
banking on whatever chance Alice had given us. That they were not going to give
in to hopelessness and wait to die.
Yes, we all would fight. What else was there? And apparently we would involve
others, because Alice had said so before she’d left us. How could we not follow
Alice’s last warning? The wolves, too, would fight with us for Renesmee.
We would fight, they would fight, and we all would die.
I didn’t feel the same resolve the others seemed to feel. Alice knew the odds. She
was giving us the only chance she could see, but the chance was too slim for her
to bet on it.
I felt already beaten as I turned my back on Sam’s critical face and followed
Carlisle toward home.
We ran automatically now, not the same panicked hurry as before. As we neared
the river, Esme’s head lifted.
“There was that other trail. It was fresh.”
She nodded forward, toward where she had called Edward’s attention on the way
here. While we were racing to save Alice…
“It has to be from earlier in the day. It was just Alice, without Jasper,” Edward
said lifelessly.
411
Esme’s face puckered, and she nodded.
I drifted to the right, falling a little behind. I was sure Edward was right, but at
the same time… After all, how had Alice’s note ended up on a page from my
book?
“Bella?” Edward asked in an emotionless voice as I hesitated.
“I want to follow the trail,” I told him, smelling the light scent of Alice that led
away from her earlier flight path. I was new to this, but it smelled exactly the
same to me, just minus the scent of Jasper.
Edward’s golden eyes were empty. “It probably just leads back to the house.”
“Then I’ll meet you there.”
At first I thought he would let me go alone, but then, as I moved a few steps away,
his blank eyes flickered to life.
“I’ll come with you,” he said quietly. “We’ll meet you at home, Carlisle.”
Carlisle nodded, and the others left. I waited until they were out of sight, and then
I looked at Edward questioningly.
“I couldn’t let you walk away from me,” he explained in a low voice. “It hurt just
to imagine it.”
I understood without more explanation than that. I thought of being divided from
him now and realized I would have felt the same pain, no matter how short the
separation.
There was so little time left to be together.
I held my hand out to him, and he took it.
“Let’s hurry,” he said. “Renesmee will be awake.”
I nodded, and we were running again.
It was probably a silly thing, to waste the time away from Renesmee just for
curiosity’s sake. But the note bothered me. Alice could have carved the note into a
boulder or tree trunk if she lacked writing utensils. She could have stolen a pad of
Post-its from any of the houses by the highway. Why my book? When did she get
it?
412
Sure enough, the trail led back to the cottage by a circuitous route that stayed far
clear of the Cullens’ house and the wolves in the nearby woods. Edward’s brows
tightened in confusion as it became obvious where the trail led.
He tried to reason it out. “She left Jasper to wait for her and came here?”
We were almost to the cottage now, and I felt uneasy. I was glad to have Edward’s
hand in mine, but I also felt as if I should be here alone. Tearing out the page and
carrying it back to Jasper was such an odd thing for Alice to do. It felt like there
was a message in her action—one I didn’t understand at all. But it was my book,
so the message must be for me. If it were something she wanted Edward to know,
wouldn’t she have pulled a page from one of his books… ?
“Give me just a minute,” I said, pulling my hand free as we got to the door.
His forehead creased. “Bella?”
“Please? Thirty seconds.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. I darted through the door, pulling it shut behind
me. I went straight to the bookshelf. Alice’s scent was fresh—less than a day old.
A fire that I had not set burned low but hot in the fireplace. I yanked The
Merchant of Venice off the shelf and flipped it open to the title page.
There, next to the feathered edge left by the torn page, under the words The
Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, was a note.
Destroy this.
Below that was a name and an address in Seattle.
When Edward came through the door after only thirteen seconds rather than
thirty, I was watching the book burn.
“What’s going on, Bella?”
“She was here. She ripped a page out of my book to write her note on.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Why are you burning it?”
“I—I—” I frowned, letting all my frustration and pain show on my face. I did not
know what Alice was trying to tell me, only that she’d gone to great lengths to
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keep it from anyone but me. The one person whose mind Edward could not read.
So she must want to keep him in the dark, and it was probably for a good reason.
“It seemed appropriate.”
“We don’t know what she’s doing,” he said quietly.
I stared into the flames. I was the only person in the world who could lie to
Edward. Was that what Alice wanted from me? Her last request?
“When we were on the plane to Italy,” I whispered—this was not a lie, except
perhaps in context—“on our way to rescue you… she lied to Jasper so that he
wouldn’t come after us. She knew that if he faced the Volturi, he would die. She
was willing to die herself rather than put him in danger. Willing for me to die,
too. Willing for you to die.”
Edward didn’t answer.
“She has her priorities,” I said. It made my still heart ache to realize that my
explanation did not feel like a lie in any way.
“I don’t believe it,” Edward said. He didn’t say it like he was arguing with me—he
said it like he was arguing with himself. “Maybe it was just Jasper in danger. Her
plan would work for the rest of us, but he’d be lost if he stayed. Maybe . . .”
“She could have told us that. Sent him away.”
“But would Jasper have gone? Maybe she’s lying to him again.”
“Maybe,” I pretended to agree. “We should go home. There’s no time.”
Edward took my hand, and we ran.
Alice’s note did not make me hopeful. If there were any way to avoid the coming
slaughter, Alice would have stayed. I couldn’t see another possibility. So it was
something else she was giving me. Not a way to escape. But what else would she
think that I wanted? Maybe a way to salvage something? Was there anything I
could still save?
Carlisle and the others had not been idle in our absence. We’d been separated
from them for all of five minutes, and they were already prepared to leave. In the
corner, Jacob was human again, with Renesmee on his lap, both of them
watching us with wide eyes.
Rosalie had traded her silk wrap dress for a sturdy-looking pair of jeans, running
shoes, and a button-down shirt made of the thick weave that backpackers used
for long trips. Esme was dressed similarly. There was a globe on the coffee table,
but they were done looking at it, just waiting for us.
414
The atmosphere was more positive now than before; it felt good to them to be in
action. Their hopes were pinned on Alice’s instructions.
I looked at the globe and wondered where we were headed first.
“We’re to stay here?” Edward asked, looking at Carlisle. He didn’t sound happy.
“Alice said that we would have to show people Renesmee, and we would have to
be careful about it,” Carlisle said. “We’ll send whomever we can find back here to
you—Edward, you’ll be the best at fielding that particular minefield.”
Edward gave one sharp nod, still not happy. “There’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“We’re splitting up,” Emmett answered. “Rose and I are hunting for nomads.”
“You’ll have your hands full here,” Carlisle said. “Tanya’s family will be here in
the morning, and they have no idea why. First, you have to persuade them not to
react the way Irina did. Second, you’ve got to find out what Alice meant about
Eleazar. Then, after all that, will they stay to witness for us? It will start again as
the others come—if we can persuade anyone to come in the first place.” Carlisle
sighed. “Your job may well be the hardest. We’ll be back to help as soon as we
can.”
Carlisle put his hand on Edward’s shoulder for a second and then kissed my
forehead. Esme hugged us both, and Emmett punched us both on the arm.
Rosalie forced a hard smile for Edward and me, blew a kiss to Renesmee, and
then gave Jacob a parting grimace.
“Good luck,” Edward told them.
“And to you,” Carlisle said. “We’ll all need it.”
I watched them leave, wishing I could feel whatever hope bolstered them, and
wishing I could be alone with the computer for just a few seconds. I had to figure
out who this J. Jenks person was and why Alice had gone to such lengths to give
his name to only me.
Renesmee twisted in Jacob’s arms to touch his cheek.
“I don’t know if Carlisle’s friends will come. I hope so. Sounds like we’re a little
outnumbered right now,” Jacob murmured to Renesmee.
So she knew. Renesmee already understood only too clearly what was going on.
The whole imprinted-werewolf-gives-the-object-of-his-imprinting-whatever-shewants
thing was getting old pretty fast. Wasn’t shielding her more important than
answering her questions?
415
I looked carefully at her face. She did not look frightened, only anxious and very
serious as she conversed with Jacob in her silent way.
“No, we can’t help; we’ve got to stay here,” he went on. “People are coming to see
you, not the scenery.”
Renesmee frowned at him.
“No, I don’t have to go anywhere,” he said to her. Then he looked at Edward, his
face stunned by the realization that he might be wrong. “Do I?”
Edward hesitated.
“Spit it out,” Jacob said, his voice raw with tension. He was right at his breaking
point, just like the rest of us.
“The vampires who are coming to help us are not the same as we are,” Edward
said. “Tanya’s family is the only one besides ours with a reverence for human life,
and even they don’t think much of werewolves. I think it might be safer—”
“I can take care of myself,” Jacob interrupted.
“Safer for Renesmee,” Edward continued, “if the choice to believe our story about
her is not tainted by an association with werewolves.”
“Some friends. They’d turn on you just because of who you hang out with now?”
“I think they would mostly be tolerant under normal circumstances. But you need
to understand—accepting Nessie will not be a simple thing for any of them. Why
make it even the slightest bit harder?”
Carlisle had explained the laws about immortal children to Jacob last night. “The
immortal children were really that bad?” he asked.
“You can’t imagine the depth of the scars they’ve left in the collective vampire
psyche.”
“Edward . . .” It was still odd to hear Jacob use Edward’s name without bitterness.
“I know, Jake. I know how hard it is to be away from her. We’ll play it by ear— see
how they react to her. In any case, Nessie is going to have to be incognito off and
on in the next few weeks. She’ll need to stay at the cottage until the right moment
for us to introduce her. As long as you keep a safe distance from the main house .
. .”
“I can do that. Company in the morning, huh?”
416
“Yes. The closest of our friends. In this particular case, it’s probably better if we
get things out in the open as soon as possible. You can stay here. Tanya knows
about you. She’s even met Seth.”
“Right.”
“You should tell Sam what’s going on. There might be strangers in the woods
soon.”
“Good point. Though I owe him some silence after last night.”
“Listening to Alice is usually the right thing.”
Jacob’s teeth ground together, and I could see that he shared Sam’s feelings
about what Alice and Jasper had done.
While they were talking, I wandered toward the back windows, trying to look
distracted and anxious. Not a difficult thing to do. I leaned my head against the
wall that curved away from the living room toward the dining room, right next to
one of the computer desks. I ran my fingers against the keys while staring into the
forest, trying to make it look like an absentminded thing. Did vampires ever do
things absentmindedly? I didn’t think anyone was paying particular attention to
me, but I didn’t turn to make sure. The monitor glowed to life. I stroked my
fingers across the keys again. Then I drummed them very quietly on the wooden
desktop, just to make it seem random. Another stroke across the keys.
I scanned the screen in my peripheral vision.
No J. Jenks, but there was a Jason Jenks. A lawyer. I brushed the keyboard,
trying to keep a rhythm, like the preoccupied stroking of a cat you’d all but
forgotten on your lap. Jason Jenks had a fancy website for his firm, but the
address on the homepage was wrong. In Seattle, but in a different zip code. I
noted the phone number and then stroked the keyboard in rhythm. This time I
searched the address, but nothing at all came up, as if the address didn’t exist. I
wanted to look at a map, but I decided I was pushing my luck. One more brush, to
delete the history. . . .
I continued staring out the window and brushed the wood a few times. I heard
light footsteps crossing the floor to me, and I turned with what I hoped was the
same expression as before.
Renesmee reached for me, and I held my arms open. She launched herself into
them, smelling strongly of werewolf, and nestled her head against my neck.
I didn’t know if I could stand this. As much as I feared for my life, for Edward’s,
for the rest of my family’s, it was not the same as the gut-wrenching terror I felt
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for my daughter. There had to be a way to save her, even if that was the only thing
I could do.
Suddenly, I knew that this was all I wanted anymore. The rest I would bear if I
had to, but not her life being forfeited. Not that.
She was the one thing I simply had to save.
Would Alice have known how I would feel?
Renesmee’s hand touched my cheek lightly.
She showed me my own face, Edward’s, Jacob’s, Rosalie’s, Esme’s, Carlisle’s,
Alice’s, Jasper’s, flipping through all our family’s faces faster and faster. Seth and
Leah. Charlie, Sue, and Billy. Over and over again. Worrying, like the rest of us
were. She was only worrying, though. Jake had kept the worst from her as far as I
could tell. The part about how we had no hope, how we all were going to die in a
month’s time.
She settled on Alice’s face, longing and confused. Where was Alice?
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But she’s Alice. She’s doing the right thing, like
always.”
The right thing for Alice, anyway. I hated thinking of her that way, but how else
could the situation be understood?
Renesmee sighed, and the longing intensified.
“I miss her, too.”
I felt my face working, trying to find the expression that went with the grief
inside. My eyes felt strange and dry; they blinked against the uncomfortable
feeling. I bit my lip. When I took my next breath, the air hitched in my throat, like
I was choking on it.
Renesmee pulled back to look at me, and I saw my face mirrored in her thoughts
and in her eyes. I looked like Esme had this morning.
So this was what it felt like to cry.
Renesmee’s eyes glistened wetly as she watched my face. She stroked my face,
showing me nothing, just trying to soothe me.
I’d never thought to see the mother-daughter bond reversed between us, the way
it had always been for Renée and me. But I hadn’t had a very clear view of the
future.
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A tear welled up on the edge of Renesmee’s eye. I wiped it away with a kiss. She
touched her eye in amazement and then looked at the wetness on her fingertip.
“Don’t cry,” I told her. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. I will find
you a way through this.”
If there was nothing else I could do, I would still save my Renesmee. I was more
positive than ever that this was what Alice would give me. She would know. She
would have left me a way.
419
30. IRRESISTIBLE
There was so much to think about.
How was I going to find time alone to hunt down J. Jenks, and why did Alice
want me to know about him?
If Alice’s clue had nothing to do with Renesmee, what could I do to save my
daughter?
How were Edward and I going to explain things to Tanya’s family in the
morning? What if they reacted like Irina? What if it turned into a fight?
I didn’t know how to fight. How was I going to learn in just a month? Was there
any chance at all that I could be taught fast enough that I might be a danger to
any one member of the Volturi? Or was I doomed to be totally useless? Just
another easily dispatched newborn?
So many answers I needed, but I did not get the chance to ask my questions.
Wanting some normality for Renesmee, I’d insisted on taking her home to our
cottage at bedtime. Jacob was more comfortable in his wolf form at the moment;
the stress was easier dealt with when he felt ready for a fight. I wished that I
could feel the same, could feel ready. He ran in the woods, on guard again.
After she was deeply under, I put Renesmee in her bed and then went to the front
room to ask my questions of Edward. The ones I was able to ask, at any rate; one
of the most difficult of problems was the idea of trying to hide anything from him,
even with the advantage of my silent thoughts.
He stood with his back to me, staring into the fire.
“Edward, I—”
He spun and was across the room in what seemed like no time at all, not even the
smallest part of a second. I only had time to register the ferocious expression on
his face before his lips were crushing against mine and his arms were locked
around me like steel girders.
I didn’t think of my questions again for the rest of that night. It didn’t take long
for me to grasp the reason for his mood, and even less time to feel exactly the
same way.
I’d been planning on needing years just to somewhat organize the overwhelming
passion I felt for him physically. And then centuries after that to enjoy it. If we
had only a month left together… Well, I didn’t see how I could stand to have this
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end. For the moment I couldn’t help but be selfish. All I wanted was to love him
as much as possible in the limited time given to me.
It was hard to pull myself away from him when the sun came up, but we had our
job to do, a job that might be more difficult than all the rest of our family’s
searches put together. As soon as I let myself think of what was coming, I was all
tension; it felt like my nerves were being stretched on a rack, thinner and thinner.
“I wish there was a way to get the information we need from Eleazar before we
tell them about Nessie,” Edward muttered as we hurriedly dressed in the huge
closet that was more reminder of Alice than I wanted at the moment. “Just in
case.”
“But he wouldn’t understand the question to answer it,” I agreed. “Do you think
they’ll let us explain?”
“I don’t know.”
I pulled Renesmee, still sleeping, from her bed and held her close so that her
curls were pressed against my face; her sweet scent, so close, overpowered every
other smell.
I couldn’t waste one second of time today. There were answers I needed, and
wasn’t sure how much time Edward and I would have alone today. If all went well
with Tanya’s family, hopefully we would have company for an extended period.
“Edward, will you teach me how to fight?” I asked him, tensed for his reaction, as
he held the door for me.
It was what I expected. He froze, and then his eyes swept over me with a deep
significance, like he was looking at me for the first or last time. His eyes lingered
on our daughter sleeping in my arms.
“If it comes to a fight, there won’t be much any of us can do,” he hedged.
I kept my voice even. “Would you leave me unable to defend myself?”
He swallowed convulsively, and the door shuddered, hinges protesting, as his
hand tightened. Then he nodded. “When you put it that way… I suppose we
should get to work as soon as we can.”
I nodded, too, and we started toward the big house. We didn’t hurry.
I wondered what I could do that would have any hope of making a difference. I
was a tiny bit special, in my own way—if a having a supernaturally thick skull
could really be considered special. Was there any use that I could put that
toward?
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“What would you say their biggest advantage is? Do they even have a weakness?”
Edward didn’t have to ask to know I meant the Volturi.
“Alec and Jane are their greatest offense,” he said emotionlessly, like we were
talking of a basketball team. “Their defensive players rarely see any real action.”
“Because Jane can burn you where you stand—mentally at least. What does Alec
do? Didn’t you once say he was even more dangerous than Jane?”
“Yes. In a way, he is the antidote to Jane. She makes you feel the worst pain
imaginable. Alec, on the other hand, makes you feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Sometimes, when the Volturi are feeling kind, they have Alec anesthetize
someone before he is executed. If he has surrendered or pleased them in some
other way.”
“Anesthetic? But how is that more dangerous than Jane?”
“Because he cuts off your senses altogether. No pain, but also no sight or sound or
smell. Total sensory deprivation. You are utterly alone in the blackness. You don’t
even feel it when they burn you.”
I shivered. Was this the best we could hope for? To not see or feel death when it
came?
“That would make him only equally as dangerous as Jane,” Edward went on in
the same detached voice, “in that they both can incapacitate you, make you into a
helpless target. The difference between them is like the difference between Aro
and me. Aro hears the mind of only one person at a time. Jane can only hurt the
one object of her focus. I can hear everyone at the same time.”
I felt cold as I saw where he was going. “And Alec can incapacitate us all at the
same time?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “If he uses his gift against us, we will all stand blind and deaf until
they get around to killing us—maybe they’ll simply burn us without bothering to
tear us apart first. Oh, we could try to fight, but we’ll be more likely to hurt one
another than we would be to hurt one of them.”
We walked in silence for a few seconds.
An idea was shaping itself in my head. Not very promising, but better than
nothing.
“Do you think Alec is a very good fighter?” I asked. “Aside from what he can do, I
mean. If he had to fight without his gift. I wonder if he’s ever even tried. . . .”
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Edward glanced at me sharply. “What are you thinking?”
I looked straight ahead. “Well, he probably can’t do that to me, can he? If what he
does is like Aro and Jane and you. Maybe… if he’s never really had to defend
himself… and I learned a few tricks—”
“He’s been with the Volturi for centuries,” Edward cut me off, his voice abruptly
panicked. He was probably seeing the same image in his head that I was: the
Cullens standing helpless, senseless pillars on the killing field—all but me. I’d be
the only one who could fight. “Yes, you’re surely immune to his power, but you
are still a newborn, Bella. I can’t make you that strong a fighter in a few weeks.
I’m sure he’s had training.”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s the one thing I can do that no one else can. Even if I can
just distract him for a while—” Could I last long enough to give the others a
chance?
“Please, Bella,” Edward said through his teeth. “Let’s not talk about this.”
“Be reasonable.”
“I will try to teach you what I can, but please don’t make me think about you
sacrificing yourself as a diversion—” He choked, and didn’t finish.
I nodded. I would keep my plans to myself, then. First Alec and then, if I was
miraculously lucky enough to win, Jane. If I could only even things out—remove
the Volturi’s overwhelming offensive advantage. Maybe then there was a
chance.… My mind raced ahead. What if I was able to distract or even take them
out? Honestly, why would either Jane or Alec ever have needed to learn battle
skills? I couldn’t imagine petulant little Jane surrendering her advantage, even to
learn.
If I was able to kill them, what a difference that would make.
“I have to learn everything. As much as you can possibly cram into my head in the
next month,” I murmured.
He acted as if I hadn’t spoken.
Who next, then? I might as well have my plans in order so that, if I did live past
attacking Alec, there would be no hesitation in my strike. I tried to think of
another situation where my thick skull would give me an advantage. I didn’t
know enough about what the others did. Obviously, fighters like the huge Felix
were beyond me. I could only try to give Emmett his fair fight there. I didn’t know
much about the rest of the Volturi guard, besides Demetri. . . .
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My face was perfectly smooth as I considered Demetri. Without a doubt, he
would be a fighter. There was no other way he could have survived so long,
always at the spear point of any attack. And he must always lead, because he was
their tracker—the best tracker in the world, no doubt. If there had been one
better, the Volturi would have traded up. Aro didn’t surround himself with
second best.
If Demetri didn’t exist, then we could run. Whoever was left of us, in any case. My
daughter, warm in my arms… Someone could run with her. Jacob or Rosalie,
whoever was left.
And… if Demetri didn’t exist, then Alice and Jasper could be safe forever. Is that
what Alice had seen? That part of our family could continue? The two of them, at
the very least.
Could I begrudge her that?
“Demetri…,” I said.
“Demetri is mine,” Edward said in a hard, tight voice. I looked at him quickly and
saw that his expression had turned violent.
“Why?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer at first. We were to the river when he finally murmured, “For
Alice. It’s the only thanks I can give her now for the last fifty years.”
So his thoughts were in line with mine.
I heard Jacob’s heavy paws thudding against the frozen ground. In seconds, he
was pacing beside me, his dark eyes focused on Renesmee.
I nodded to him once, then returned to my questions. There was so little time.
“Edward, why do you think Alice told us to ask Eleazar about the Volturi? Has he
been in Italy recently or something? What could he know?”
“Eleazar knows everything when it comes to the Volturi. I forgot you didn’t know.
He used to be one of them.”
I hissed involuntarily. Jacob growled beside me.
“What?” I demanded, in my head picturing the beautiful dark-haired man at our
wedding wrapped in a long, ashy cloak.
Edward’s face was softer now—he smiled a little. “Eleazar is a very gentle person.
He wasn’t entirely happy with the Volturi, but he respected the law and its need
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to be upheld. He felt he was working toward the greater good. He doesn’t regret
his time with them. But when he found Carmen, he found his place in this world.
They are very similar people, both very compassionate for vampires.” He smiled
again. “They met Tanya and her sisters, and they never looked back. They are well
suited to this lifestyle. If they’d never found Tanya, I imagine they would have
eventually discovered a way to live without human blood on their own.”
The pictures in my head were jarring. I couldn’t make them match up. A
compassionate Volturi soldier?
Edward glanced at Jacob and answered a silent question. “No, he wasn’t one of
their warriors, so to speak. He had a gift they found convenient.”
Jacob must have asked the obvious follow-up question.
“He has an instinctive feel for the gifts of others—the extra abilities that some
vampires have,” Edward told him. “He could give Aro a general idea of what any
given vampire was capable of just by being in proximity with him or her. This was
helpful when the Volturi went into battle. He could warn them if someone in the
opposing coven had a skill that might give them some trouble. That was rare; it
takes quite a skill to even inconvenience the Volturi for a moment. More often,
the warning would give Aro the chance to save someone who might be useful to
him. Eleazar’s gift works even with humans, to an extent. He has to really
concentrate with humans, though, because the latent ability is so nebulous. Aro
would have him test the people who wanted to join, to see if they had any
potential. Aro was sorry to see him go.”
“They let him go?” I asked. “Just like that?”
His smile was darker now, a little twisted. “The Volturi aren’t supposed to be the
villains, the way they seem to you. They are the foundation of our peace and
civilization. Each member of the guard chooses to serve them. It’s quite
prestigious; they all are proud to be there, not forced to be there.”
I scowled at the ground.
“They’re only alleged to be heinous and evil by the criminals, Bella.”
“We’re not criminals.”
Jacob huffed in agreement.
“They don’t know that.”
“Do you really think we can make them stop and listen?”
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Edward hesitated just the tiniest moment and then shrugged. “If we find enough
friends to stand beside us. Maybe.”
If. I suddenly felt the urgency of what we had before us today. Edward and I both
started to move faster, breaking into a run. Jacob caught up quickly.
“Tanya shouldn’t be too much longer,” Edward said. “We need to be ready.”
How to be ready, though? We arranged and rearranged, thought and rethought.
Renesmee in full view? Or hidden at first? Jacob in the room? Or outside? He’d
told his pack to stay close but invisible. Should he do the same?
In the end, Renesmee, Jacob—in his human form again—and I waited around the
corner from the front door in the dining room, sitting at the big polished table.
Jacob let me hold Renesmee; he wanted space in case he had to phase quickly.
Though I was glad to have her in my arms, it made me feel useless. It reminded
me that in a fight with mature vampires, I was no more than an easy target; I
didn’t need my hands free.
I tried to remember Tanya, Kate, Carmen, and Eleazar from the wedding. Their
faces were murky in my ill-lit memories. I only knew they were beautiful, two
blondes and two brunettes. I couldn’t remember if there was any kindness in
their eyes.
Edward leaned motionlessly against the back window wall, staring toward the
front door. It didn’t look like he was seeing the room in front of him.
We listened to the cars zooming past out on the freeway, none of them slowing.
Renesmee nestled into my neck, her hand against my cheek but no images in my
head. She didn’t have pictures for her feelings now.
“What if they don’t like me?” she whispered, and all our eyes flashed to her face.
“Of course they’ll—,” Jacob started to say, but I silenced him with a look.
“They don’t understand you, Renesmee, because they’ve never met anyone like
you,” I told her, not wanting to lie to her with promises that might not come true.
“Getting them to understand is the problem.”
She sighed, and in my head flashed pictures of all of us in one quick burst.
Vampire, human, werewolf. She fit nowhere.
“You’re special, that’s not a bad thing.”
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She shook her head in disagreement. She thought of our strained faces and said,
“This is my fault.”
“No,” Jacob, Edward, and I all said at exactly the same time, but before we could
argue further, we heard the sound we’d been waiting for: the slowing of an engine
on the freeway, the tires moving from pavement to soft dirt.
Edward darted around the corner to stand waiting by the door. Renesmee hid in
my hair. Jacob and I stared at each other across the table, desperation on our
faces.
The car moved quickly through the woods, faster than Charlie or Sue drove. We
heard it pull into the meadow and stop by the front porch. Four doors opened
and closed. They didn’t speak as they approached the door. Edward opened it
before they could knock.
“Edward!” a female voice enthused.
“Hello, Tanya. Kate, Eleazar, Carmen.”
Three murmured hellos.
“Carlisle said he needed to talk to us right away,” the first voice said, Tanya. I
could hear that they all were still outside. I imagined Edward in the doorway,
blocking their entrance. “What’s the problem? Trouble with the werewolves?”
Jacob rolled his eyes.
“No,” Edward said. “Our truce with the werewolves is stronger than ever.”
A woman chuckled.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” Tanya asked. And then she continued without
waiting for an answer. “Where’s Carlisle?”
“Carlisle had to leave.”
There was a short silence.
“What’s going on, Edward?” Tanya demanded.
“If you could give me the benefit of the doubt for just a few minutes,” he
answered. “I have something difficult to explain, and I’ll need you to be openminded
until you understand.”
“Is Carlisle all right?” a male voice asked anxiously. Eleazar.
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“None of us is all right, Eleazar,” Edward said, and then he patted something,
maybe Eleazar’s shoulder. “But physically, Carlisle is fine.”
“Physically?” Tanya asked sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that my entire family is in very grave danger. But before I explain, I ask
for your promise. Listen to everything I say before you react. I am begging you to
hear me out.”
A longer silence greeted his request. Through the strained hush, Jacob and I
stared wordlessly at each other. His russet lips paled.
“We’re listening,” Tanya finally said. “We will hear it all before we judge.”
“Thank you, Tanya,” Edward said fervently. “We wouldn’t involve you in this if we
had any other choice.”
Edward moved. We heard four sets of footsteps walk through the doorway.
Someone sniffed. “I knew those werewolves were involved,” Tanya muttered.
“Yes, and they’re on our side. Again.”
The reminder silenced Tanya.
“Where’s your Bella?” one of the other female voices asked. “How is she?”
“She’ll join us shortly. She’s well, thank you. She’s taken to immortality with
amazing finesse.”
“Tell us about the danger, Edward,” Tanya said quietly. “We’ll listen, and we’ll be
on your side, where we belong.”
Edward took a deep breath. “I’d like you to witness for yourselves first. Listen—in
the other room. What do you hear?”
It was quiet, and then there was movement.
“Just listen first, please,” Edward said.
“A werewolf, I assume. I can hear his heart,” Tanya said.
“What else?” Edward asked.
There was a pause.
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“What is that thrumming?” Kate or Carmen asked. “Is that… some kind of a
bird?”
“No, but remember what you’re hearing. Now, what do you smell? Besides the
werewolf.”
“Is there a human here?” Eleazar whispered.
“No,” Tanya disagreed. “It’s not human… but… closer to human than the rest of
the scents here. What is that, Edward? I don’t think I’ve ever smelled that
fragrance before.”
“You most certainly have not, Tanya. Please, please remember that this is
something entirely new to you. Throw away your preconceived notions.”
“I promised you I would listen, Edward.”
“All right, then. Bella? Bring out Renesmee, please.”
My legs felt strangely numb, but I knew that feeling was all in my head. I forced
myself not to hold back, not to move sluggishly, as I got to my feet and walked the
few short feet to the corner. The heat from Jacob’s body flamed close behind me
as he shadowed my steps.
I took one step into the bigger room and then froze, unable to force myself farther
forward. Renesmee took a deep breath and then peeped out from under my hair,
her little shoulders tight, expecting a rebuff.
I thought I’d prepared myself for their reaction. For accusations, for shouting, for
the motionlessness of deep stress.
Tanya skittered back four steps, her strawberry curls quivering, like a human
confronted by a venomous snake. Kate jumped back all the way to the front door
and braced herself against the wall there. A shocked hiss came from between her
clenched teeth. Eleazar threw himself in front of Carmen in a protective crouch.
“Oh please,” I heard Jacob complain under his breath.
Edward put his arm around Renesmee and me. “You promised to listen,” he
reminded them.
“Some things cannot be heard!” Tanya exclaimed. “How could you, Edward? Do
you not know what this means?”
“We have to get out of here,” Kate said anxiously, her hand on the doorknob.
“Edward . . .” Eleazar seemed beyond words.
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“Wait,” Edward said, his voice harder now. “Remember what you hear, what you
smell. Renesmee is not what you think she is.”
“There are no exceptions to this rule, Edward,” Tanya snapped back.
“Tanya,” Edward said sharply, “you can hear her heartbeat! Stop and think about
what that means.”
“Her heartbeat?” Carmen whispered, peering around Eleazar’s shoulder.
“She’s not a full vampire child,” Edward answered, directing his attention toward
Carmen’s less hostile expression. “She is half-human.”
The four vampires stared at him like he was speaking a language none of them
knew.
“Hear me.” Edward’s voice shifted into a smooth velvet tone of persuasion.
“Renesmee is one of a kind. I am her father. Not her creator—her biological
father.”
Tanya’s head was shaking, just a tiny movement. She didn’t seem aware of it.
“Edward, you can’t expect us to—,” Eleazar started to say.
“Tell me another explanation that fits, Eleazar. You can feel the warmth of her
body in the air. Blood runs in her veins, Eleazar. You can smell it.”
“How?” Kate breathed.
“Bella is her biological mother,” Edward told her. “She conceived, carried, and
gave birth to Renesmee while she was still human. It nearly killed her. I was
hard-pressed to get enough venom into her heart to save her.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Eleazar said. His shoulders were still stiff, his
expression cold.
“Physical relationships between vampires and humans are not common,” Edward
answered, a bit of dark humor in his tone now. “Human survivors of such trysts
are even less common. Wouldn’t you agree, cousins?”
Both Kate and Tanya scowled at him.
“Come now, Eleazar. Surely you can see the resemblance.”
It was Carmen who responded to Edward’s words. She stepped around Eleazar,
ignoring his half-articulated warning, and walked carefully to stand right in front
of me. She leaned down slightly, looking carefully into Renesmee’s face.
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“You seem to have your mother’s eyes,” she said in a low, calm voice, “but your
father’s face.” And then, as if she could not help herself, she smiled at Renesmee.
Renesmee’s answering smile was dazzling. She touched my face without looking
away from Carmen. She imagined touching Carmen’s face, wondering if that was
okay.
“Do you mind if Renesmee tells you about it herself?” I asked Carmen. I was still
too stressed to speak above a whisper. “She has a gift for explaining things.”
Carmen was still smiling at Renesmee. “Do you speak, little one?”
“Yes,” Renesmee answered in her trilling high soprano. All of Tanya’s family
flinched at the sound of her voice except for Carmen. “But I can show you more
than I can tell you.”
She placed her little dimpled hand on Carmen’s cheek.
Carmen stiffened like an electric shock had run through her. Eleazar was at her
side in an instant, his hands on her shoulders as if to yank her away.
“Wait,” Carmen said breathlessly, her unblinking eyes locked on Renesmee’s.
Renesmee “showed” Carmen her explanation for a long time. Edward’s face was
intent as he watched with Carmen, and I wished so much that I could hear what
he heard, too. Jacob shifted his weight impatiently behind me, and I knew he was
wishing the same.
“What’s Nessie showing her?” he grumbled under his breath.
“Everything,” Edward murmured.
Another minute passed, and Renesmee dropped her hand from Carmen’s face.
She smiled winningly at the stunned vampire.
“She really is your daughter, isn’t she?” Carmen breathed, switching her wide
topaz eyes to Edward’s face. “Such a vivid gift! It could only have come from a
very gifted father.”
“Do you believe what she showed you?” Edward asked, his expression intense.
“Without a doubt,” Carmen said simply.
Eleazar’s face was rigid with distress. “Carmen!”
Carmen took his hands into her own and squeezed them. “Impossible as it seems,
Edward has told you nothing but truth. Let the child show you.”
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Carmen nudged Eleazar closer to me and then nodded at Renesmee. “Show him,
mi querida.”
Renesmee grinned, clearly delighted with Carmen’s acceptance, and touched
Eleazar lightly on the forehead.
“Ay caray!” he spit, and jerked away from her.
“What did she do to you?” Tanya demanded, coming closer warily. Kate crept
forward, too.
“She’s just trying to show you her side of the story,” Carmen told him in a
soothing voice.
Renesmee frowned impatiently. “Watch, please,” she commanded Eleazar. She
stretched her hand out to him and then left a few inches between her fingers and
his face, waiting.
Eleazar eyed her suspiciously and then glanced at Carmen for help. She nodded
encouragingly. Eleazar took a deep breath and then leaned closer until his
forehead touched her hand again.
He shuddered when it began but held still this time, his eyes closed in
concentration.
“Ahh,” he sighed when his eyes reopened a few minutes later. “I see.”
Renesmee smiled at him. He hesitated, then smiled a slightly unwilling smile in
response.
“Eleazar?” Tanya asked.
“It’s all true, Tanya. This is no immortal child. She’s half-human. Come. See for
yourself.”
In silence, Tanya took her turn standing warily before me, and then Kate, both
showing shock as that first image hit them with Renesmee’s touch. But then, just
like Carmen and Eleazar, they seemed completely won over as soon as it was
done.
I shot a glance at Edward’s smooth face, wondering if it could really be so easy.
His golden eyes were clear, unshadowed. There was no deception in this, then.
“Thank you for listening,” he said quietly.
432
“But there is the grave danger you warned us of,” Tanya said. “Not directly from
this child, I see, but surely from the Volturi, then. How did they find out about
her? When are they coming?”
I was not surprised at her quick understanding. After all, what could possibly be a
threat to a family as strong as mine? Only the Volturi.
“When Bella saw Irina that day in the mountains,” Edward explained, “she had
Renesmee with her.”
Kate hissed, her eyes narrowing to slits. “Irina did this? To you? To Carlisle?
Irina?”
“No,” Tanya whispered. “Someone else . . .”
“Alice saw her go to them,” Edward said. I wondered if the others noticed the way
he winced just slightly when he spoke Alice’s name.
“How could she do this thing?” Eleazar asked of no one.
“Imagine if you had seen Renesmee only from a distance. If you had not waited
for our explanation.”
Tanya’s eyes tightened. “No matter what she thought… You are our family.”
“There’s nothing we can do about Irina’s choice now. It’s too late. Alice gave us a
month.”
Both Tanya’s and Eleazar’s heads cocked to one side. Kate’s brow furrowed.
“So long?” Eleazar asked.
“They are all coming. That must take some preparation.”
Eleazar gasped. “The entire guard?”
“Not just the guard,” Edward said, his jaw straining tight. “Aro, Caius, Marcus.
Even the wives.”
Shock glazed over all their eyes.
“Impossible,” Eleazar said blankly.
“I would have said the same two days ago,” Edward said.
Eleazar scowled, and when he spoke it was nearly a growl. “But that doesn’t make
any sense. Why would they put themselves and the wives in danger?”
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“It doesn’t make sense from that angle. Alice said there was more to this than just
punishment for what they think we’ve done. She thought you could help us.”
“More than punishment? But what else is there?” Eleazar started pacing, stalking
toward the door and back again as if he were alone here, his eyebrows furrowed
as he stared at the floor.
“Where are the others, Edward? Carlisle and Alice and the rest?” Tanya asked.
Edward’s hesitation was almost unnoticeable. He answered only part of her
question. “Looking for friends who might help us.”
Tanya leaned toward him, holding her hands out in front of her. “Edward, no
matter how many friends you gather, we can’t help you win. We can only die with
you. You must know that. Of course, perhaps the four of us deserve that after
what Irina has done now, after how we’ve failed you in the past—for her sake that
time as well.”
Edward shook his head quickly. “We’re not asking you to fight and die with us,
Tanya. You know Carlisle would never ask for that.”
“Then what, Edward?”
“We’re just looking for witnesses. If we can make them pause, just for a moment.
If they would let us explain . . .” He touched Renesmee’s cheek; she grabbed his
hand and held it pressed against her skin. “It’s difficult to doubt our story when
you see it for yourself.”
Tanya nodded slowly. “Do you think her past will matter to them so much?”
“Only as it foreshadows her future. The point of the restriction was to protect us
from exposure, from the excesses of children who could not be tamed.”
“I’m not dangerous at all,” Renesmee interjected. I listened to her high, clear
voice with new ears, imagining how she sounded to the others. “I never hurt
Grandpa or Sue or Billy. I love humans. And wolf-people like my Jacob.” She
dropped Edward’s hand to reach back and pat Jacob’s arm.
Tanya and Kate exchanged a quick glance.
“If Irina had not come so soon,” Edward mused, “we could have avoided all of
this. Renesmee grows at an unprecedented rate. By the time the month is past,
she’ll have gained another half year of development.”
“Well, that is something we can certainly witness,” Carmen said in a decided tone.
“We’ll be able to promise that we’ve seen her mature ourselves. How could the
Volturi ignore such evidence?”
434
Eleazar mumbled, “How, indeed?” but he did not look up, and he continued
pacing as if he were paying no attention at all.
“Yes, we can witness for you,” Tanya said. “Certainly that much. We will consider
what more we might do.”
“Tanya,” Edward protested, hearing more in her thoughts than there was in her
words, “we don’t expect you to fight with us.”
“If the Volturi won’t pause to listen to our witness, we cannot simply stand by,”
Tanya insisted. “Of course, I should only speak for myself.”
Kate snorted. “Do you really doubt me so much, sister?”
Tanya smiled widely at her. “It is a suicide mission, after all.”
Kate flashed a grin back and then shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m in.”
“I, too, will do what I can to protect the child,” Carmen agreed. Then, as if she
couldn’t resist, she held her arms out toward Renesmee. “May I hold you, bebé
linda?”
Renesmee reached eagerly toward Carmen, delighted with her new friend.
Carmen hugged her close, murmuring to her in Spanish.
It was like it had been with Charlie, and before that with all the Cullens.
Renesmee was irresistible. What was it about her that drew everyone to her, that
made them willing even to pledge their lives in her defense?
For a moment I thought that maybe what we were attempting might be possible.
Maybe Renesmee could do the impossible and win over our enemies as she had
our friends.
And then I remembered that Alice had left us, and my hope vanished as quickly
as it had appeared.
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31. TALENTED
“What is the werewolves’ part in this?” Tanya asked then, eyeing Jacob.
Jacob spoke before Edward could answer. “If the Volturi won’t stop to listen
about Nessie, I mean Renesmee,” he corrected himself, remembering that Tanya
would not understand his stupid nickname, “we will stop them.”
“Very brave, child, but that would be impossible for more experienced fighters
than you are.”
“You don’t know what we can do.”
Tanya shrugged. “It is your own life, certainly, to spend as you choose.”
Jacob’s eyes flickered to Renesmee—still in Carmen’s arms with Kate hovering
over them—and it was easy to read the longing in them.
“She is special, that little one,” Tanya mused. “Hard to resist.”
“A very talented family,” Eleazar murmured as he paced. His tempo was
increasing; he flashed from the door to Carmen and back again every second. “A
mind reader for a father, a shield for a mother, and then whatever magic this
extraordinary child has bewitched us with. I wonder if there is a name for what
she does, or if it is the norm for a vampire hybrid. As if such a thing could ever be
considered normal! A vampire hybrid, indeed!”
“Excuse me,” Edward said in a stunned voice. He reached out and caught
Eleazar’s shoulder as he was about to turn again for the door. “What did you just
call my wife?”
Eleazar looked at Edward curiously, his manic pacing forgotten for the moment.
“A shield, I think. She’s blocking me now, so I can’t be sure.”
I stared at Eleazar, my brows furrowing in confusion. Shield? What did he mean
about my blocking him? I was standing right here beside him, not defensive in
any way.
“A shield?” Edward repeated, bewildered.
“Come now, Edward! If I can’t get a read on her, I doubt you can, either. Can you
hear her thoughts right now?” Eleazar asked.
“No,” Edward murmured. “But I’ve never been able to do that. Even when she
was human.”
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“Never?” Eleazar blinked. “Interesting. That would indicate a rather powerful
latent talent, if it was manifesting so clearly even before the transformation. I
can’t feel a way through her shield to get a sense of it at all. Yet she must be raw
still—she’s only a few months old.” The look he gave Edward now was almost
exasperated. “And apparently completely unaware of what she’s doing. Totally
unconscious. Ironic. Aro sent me all over the world searching for such anomalies,
and you simply stumble across it by accident and don’t even realize what you
have.” Eleazar shook his head in disbelief.
I frowned. “What are you talking about? How can I be a shield? What does that
even mean?” All I could picture in my head was a ridiculous medieval suit of
armor.
Eleazar leaned his head to one side as he examined me. “I suppose we were overly
formal about it in the guard. In truth, categorizing talents is a subjective,
haphazard business; every talent is unique, never exactly the same thing twice.
But you, Bella, are fairly easy to classify. Talents that are purely defensive, that
protect some aspect of the bearer, are always called shields. Have you ever tested
your abilities? Blocked anyone besides me and your mate?”
It took me few seconds, despite how quickly my new brain worked, to organize
my answer.
“It only works with certain things,” I told him. “My head is sort of… private. But it
doesn’t stop Jasper from being able to mess with my mood or Alice from seeing
my future.”
“Purely a mental defense.” Eleazar nodded to himself. “Limited, but strong.”
“Aro couldn’t hear her,” Edward interjected. “Though she was human when they
met.”
Eleazar’s eyes widened.
“Jane tried to hurt me, but she couldn’t,” I said. “Edward thinks Demetri can’t
find me, and that Alec can’t bother me, either. Is that good?”
Eleazar, still gaping, nodded. “Quite.”
“A shield!” Edward said, deep satisfaction saturating his tone. “I never thought of
it that way. The only one I’ve ever met before was Renata, and what she did was
so different.”
Eleazar had recovered slightly. “Yes, no talent ever manifests in precisely the
same way, because no one ever thinks in exactly the same way.”
437
“Who’s Renata? What does she do?” I asked. Renesmee was interested, too,
leaning away from Carmen so that she could see around Kate.
“Renata is Aro’s personal bodyguard,” Eleazar told me. “A very practical kind of
shield, and a very strong one.”
I vaguely remembered a small crowd of vampires hovering close to Aro in his
macabre tower, some male, some female. I couldn’t remember the women’s faces
in the uncomfortable, terrifying memory. One must have been Renata.
“I wonder…,” Eleazar mused. “You see, Renata is a powerful shield against a
physical attack. If someone approaches her—or Aro, as she is always close beside
him in a hostile situation—they find themselves… diverted. There’s a force
around her that repels, though it’s almost unnoticeable. You simply find yourself
going a different direction than you planned, with a confused memory as to why
you wanted to go that other way in the first place. She can project her shield
several meters out from herself. She also protects Caius and Marcus, too, when
they have a need, but Aro is her priority.
“What she does isn’t actually physical, though. Like the vast majority of our gifts,
it takes place inside the mind. If she tried to keep you back, I wonder who would
win?” He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of Aro’s or Jane’s gifts being
thwarted.”
“Momma, you’re special,” Renesmee told me without any surprise, like she was
commenting on the color of my clothes.
I felt disoriented. Didn’t I already know my gift? I had my super-self-control that
had allowed me to skip right over the horrifying newborn year. Vampires only
had one extra ability at most, right?
Or had Edward been correct in the beginning? Before Carlisle had suggested that
my self-control could be something beyond the natural, Edward had thought my
restraint was just a product of good preparation—focus and attitude, he’d
declared.
Which one had been right? Was there more I could do? A name and a category
for what I was?
“Can you project?” Kate asked interestedly.
“Project?” I asked.
“Push it out from yourself,” Kate explained. “Shield someone besides yourself.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. I didn’t know I should do that.”
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“Oh, you might not be able to,” Kate said quickly. “Heavens knows I’ve been
working on it for centuries and the best I can do is run a current over my skin.”
I stared at her, mystified.
“Kate’s got an offensive skill,” Edward said. “Sort of like Jane.”
I flinched away from Kate automatically, and she laughed.
“I’m not sadistic about it,” she assured me. “It’s just something that comes in
handy during a fight.”
Kate’s words were sinking in, beginning to make connections in my mind. Shield
someone besides yourself, she’d said. As if there were some way for me to include
another person in my strange, quirky silent head.
I remembered Edward cringing on the ancient stones of the Volturi castle turret.
Though this was a human memory, it was sharper, more painful than most of the
others—like it had been branded into the tissues of my brain.
What if I could stop that from happening ever again? What if I could protect him?
Protect Renesmee? What if there was even the faintest glimmer of a possibility
that I could shield them, too?
“You have to teach me what to do!” I insisted, unthinkingly grabbing Kate’s arm.
“You have to show me how!”
Kate winced at my grip. “Maybe—if you stop trying to crush my radius.”
“Oops! Sorry!”
“You’re shielding, all right,” Kate said. “That move should have about shocked
your arm off. You didn’t feel anything just now?”
“That wasn’t really necessary, Kate. She didn’t mean any harm,” Edward
muttered under his breath. Neither of us paid attention to him.
“No, I didn’t feel anything. Were you doing your electric current thing?”
“I was. Hmm. I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t feel it, immortal or otherwise.”
“You said you project it? On your skin?”
Kate nodded. “It used to be just in my palms. Kind of like Aro.”
“Or Renesmee,” Edward interjected.
439
“But after a lot of practice, I can radiate the current all over my body. It’s a good
defense. Anyone who tries to touch me drops like a human that’s been Tasered. It
only downs him for a second, but that’s long enough.”
I was only half-listening to Kate, my thoughts racing around the idea that I might
be able to protect my little family if I could just learn fast enough. I wished
fervently that I might be good at this projecting thing, too, like I was somehow
mysteriously good at all the other aspects of being a vampire. My human life had
not prepared me for things that came naturally, and I couldn’t make myself trust
this aptitude to last.
It felt like I had never wanted anything so badly before this: to be able to protect
what I loved.
Because I was so preoccupied, I didn’t notice the silent exchange going on
between Edward and Eleazar until it became a spoken conversation.
“Can you think of even one exception, though?” Edward asked.
I looked over to make sense of his comment and realized that everyone else was
already staring at the two men. They were leaning toward each other intently,
Edward’s expression tight with suspicion, Eleazar’s unhappy and reluctant.
“I don’t want to think of them that way,” Eleazar said through his teeth. I was
surprised at the sudden change in the atmosphere.
“If you’re right—,” Eleazar began again.
Edward cut him off. “The thought was yours, not mine.”
“If I’m right… I can’t even grasp what that would mean. It would change
everything about the world we’ve created. It would change the meaning of my life.
What I have been a part of.”
“Your intentions were always the best, Eleazar.”
“Would that even matter? What have I done? How many lives . . .”
Tanya put her hand on Eleazar’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “What did we
miss, my friend? I want to know so that I can argue with these thoughts. You’ve
never done anything worth castigating yourself this way.”
“Oh, haven’t I?” Eleazar muttered. Then he shrugged out from under her hand
and began his pacing again, faster even than before.
Tanya watched him for half a second and then focused on Edward. “Explain.”
440
Edward nodded, his tense eyes following Eleazar as he spoke. “He was trying to
understand why so many of the Volturi would come to punish us. It’s not the way
they do things. Certainly, we are the biggest mature coven they’ve dealt with, but
in the past other covens have joined to protect themselves, and they never
presented much of a challenge despite their numbers. We are more closely
bonded, and that’s a factor, but not a huge one.
“He was remembering other times that covens have been punished, for one thing
or the other, and a pattern occurred to him. It was a pattern that the rest of the
guard would never have noticed, since Eleazar was the one passing the pertinent
intelligence privately to Aro. A pattern that only repeated every other century or
so.”
“What was this pattern?” Carmen asked, watching Eleazar as Edward was.
“Aro does not often personally attend a punishing expedition,” Edward said. “But
in the past, when Aro wanted something in particular, it was never long before
evidence turned up proving that this coven or that coven had committed some
unpardonable crime. The ancients would decide to go along to watch the guard
administer justice. And then, once the coven was all but destroyed, Aro would
grant a pardon to one member whose thoughts, he would claim, were particularly
repentant. Always, it would turn out that this vampire had the gift Aro had
admired. Always, this person was given a place with the guard. The gifted
vampire was won over quickly, always so grateful for the honor. There were no
exceptions.”
“It must be a heady thing to be chosen,” Kate suggested.
“Ha!” Eleazar snarled, still in motion.
“There is one among the guard,” Edward said, explaining Eleazar’s angry
reaction. “Her name is Chelsea. She has influence over the emotional ties
between people. She can both loosen and secure these ties. She could make
someone feel bonded to the Volturi, to want to belong, to want to please them. . .
.”
Eleazar came to an abrupt halt. “We all understood why Chelsea was important.
In a fight, if we could separate allegiances between allied covens, we could defeat
them that much more easily. If we could distance the innocent members of a
coven emotionally from the guilty, justice could be done without unnecessary
brutality—the guilty could be punished without interference, and the innocent
could be spared. Otherwise, it was impossible to keep the coven from fighting as a
whole. So Chelsea would break the ties that bound them together. It seemed a
great kindness to me, evidence of Aro’s mercy. I did suspect that Chelsea kept our
own band more tightly knit, but that, too, was a good thing. It made us more
effective. It helped us coexist more easily.”
441
This clarified old memories for me. It had not made sense to me before how the
guard obeyed their masters so gladly, with almost lover-like devotion.
“How strong is her gift?” Tanya asked with an edge to her voice. Her gaze quickly
touched on each member of her family.
Eleazar shrugged. “I was able to leave with Carmen.” And then he shook his head.
“But anything weaker than the bond between partners is in danger. In a normal
coven, at least. Those are weaker bonds than those in our family, though.
Abstaining from human blood makes us more civilized—lets us form true bonds
of love. I doubt she could turn our allegiances, Tanya.”
Tanya nodded, seeming reassured, while Eleazar continued with his analysis.
“I could only think that the reason Aro had decided to come himself, to bring so
many with him, is because his goal is not punishment but acquisition,” Eleazar
said. “He needs to be there to control the situation. But he needs the entire guard
for protection from such a large, gifted coven. On the other hand, that leaves the
other ancients unprotected in Volterra. Too risky—someone might try to take
advantage. So they all come together. How else could he be sure to preserve the
gifts that he wants? He must want them very badly,” Eleazar mused.
Edward’s voice was low as a breath. “From what I saw of his thoughts last spring,
Aro’s never wanted anything more than he wants Alice.”
I felt my mouth fall open, remembering the nightmarish pictures I had imagined
long ago: Edward and Alice in black cloaks with bloodred eyes, their faces cold
and remote as they stood close as shadows, Aro’s hands on theirs.… Had Alice
seen this more recently? Had she seen Chelsea trying to strip away her love for
us, to bind her to Aro and Caius and Marcus?
“Is that why Alice left?” I asked, my voice breaking on her name.
Edward put his hand against my cheek. “I think it must be. To keep Aro from
gaining the thing he wants most of all. To keep her power out of his hands.”
I heard Tanya and Kate murmuring in disturbed voices and remembered that
they hadn’t known about Alice.
“He wants you, too,” I whispered.
Edward shrugged, his face suddenly a little too composed. “Not nearly as much. I
can’t really give him anything more than he already has. And of course that’s
dependent on his finding a way to force me to do his will. He knows me, and he
knows how unlikely that is.” He raised one eyebrow sardonically.
442
Eleazar frowned at Edward’s nonchalance. “He also knows your weaknesses,”
Eleazar pointed out, and then he looked at me.
“It’s nothing we need to discuss now,” Edward said quickly.
Eleazar ignored the hint and continued. “He probably wants your mate, too,
regardless. He must have been intrigued by a talent that could defy him in its
human incarnation.”
Edward was uncomfortable with this topic. I didn’t like it, either. If Aro wanted
me to do something—anything—all he had to do was threaten Edward and I
would comply. And vice versa.
Was death the lesser concern? Was it really capture we should fear?
Edward changed the subject. “I think the Volturi were waiting for this—for some
pretext. They couldn’t know what form their excuse would come in, but the plan
was already in place for when it did come. That’s why Alice saw their decision
before Irina triggered it. The decision was already made, just waiting for the
pretense of a justification.”
“If the Volturi are abusing the trust all immortals have placed in them…,” Carmen
murmured.
“Does it matter?” Eleazar asked. “Who would believe it? And even if others could
be convinced that the Volturi are exploiting their power, how would it make any
difference? No one can stand against them.”
“Though some of us are apparently insane enough to try,” Kate muttered.
Edward shook his head. “You’re only here to witness, Kate. Whatever Aro’s goal, I
don’t think he’s ready to tarnish the Volturi’s reputation for it. If we can take
away his argument against us, he’ll be forced to leave us in peace.”
“Of course,” Tanya murmured.
No one looked convinced. For a few long minutes, nobody said anything.
Then I heard the sound of tires turning off the highway pavement onto the
Cullens’ dirt drive.
“Oh crap, Charlie,” I muttered. “Maybe the Denalis could hang out upstairs
until—”
“No,” Edward said in a distant voice. His eyes were far away, staring blankly at
the door. “It’s not your father.” His gaze focused on me. “Alice sent Peter and
Charlotte, after all. Time to get ready for the next round.”
443
32. COMPANY
The Cullens’ enormous house was more crowded with guests than anyone would
assume could possibly be comfortable. It only worked out because none of the
visitors slept. Mealtimes were dicey, though. Our company cooperated as best
they could. They gave Forks and La Push a wide berth, only hunting out of state;
Edward was a gracious host, lending out his cars as needed without so much as a
wince. The compromise made me very uncomfortable, though I tried to tell
myself that they’d all be hunting somewhere in the world, regardless.
Jacob was even more upset. The werewolves existed to prevent the loss of human
life, and here was rampant murder being condoned barely outside the packs’
borders. But under these circumstances, with Renesmee in acute danger, he kept
his mouth shut and glared at the floor rather than the vampires.
I was amazed at the easy acceptance the visiting vampires had for Jacob; the
problems Edward had anticipated had never materialized. Jacob seemed more or
less invisible to them, not quite a person, but also not food, either. They treated
him the way people who are not animal-lovers treat the pets of their friends.
Leah, Seth, Quil, and Embry were assigned to run with Sam for now, and Jacob
would have happily joined them, except that he couldn’t stand to be away from
Renesmee, and Renesmee was busy fascinating the strange collection of Carlisle’s
friends.
We’d replayed the scene of Renesmee’s introduction to the Denali coven a half
dozen times. First for Peter and Charlotte, whom Alice and Jasper had sent our
way without giving them any explanation at all; like most people who knew Alice,
they trusted her instructions despite the lack of information. Alice had told them
nothing about which direction she and Jasper were heading. She’d made no
promise to ever see them again in the future.
Neither Peter nor Charlotte had ever seen an immortal child. Though they knew
the rule, their negative reaction was not as powerful as the Denali vampires’ had
been at first. Curiosity had driven them to allow Renesmee’s “explanation.” And
that was it. Now they were as committed to witnessing as Tanya’s family.
Carlisle had sent friends from Ireland and Egypt.
The Irish clan arrived first, and they were surprisingly easy to convince.
Siobhan—a woman of immense presence whose huge body was both beautiful
and mesmerizing as it moved in smooth undulations—was the leader, but she and
her hard-faced mate, Liam, were long used to trusting the judgment of their
newest coven member. Little Maggie, with her bouncy red curls, was not
physically imposing like the other two, but she had a gift for knowing when she
was being lied to, and her verdicts were never contested. Maggie declared that
444
Edward spoke the truth, and so Siobhan and Liam accepted our story absolutely
before even touching Renesmee.
Amun and the other Egyptian vampires were another story. Even after two
younger members of his coven, Benjamin and Tia, had been convinced by
Renesmee’s explanation, Amun refused to touch her and ordered his coven to
leave. Benjamin—an oddly cheerful vampire who looked barely older than a boy
and seemed both utterly confident and utterly careless at the same time—
persuaded Amun to stay with a few subtle threats about disbanding their alliance.
Amun stayed, but continued to refuse to touch Renesmee, and would not allow
his mate, Kebi, to touch her, either. It seemed an unlikely grouping—though the
Egyptians all looked so alike, with their midnight hair and olive-toned pallor, that
they easily could have passed for a biological family. Amun was the senior
member and the outspoken leader. Kebi never strayed farther away from Amun
than his shadow, and I never heard her speak a single word. Tia, Benjamin’s
mate, was a quiet woman as well, though when she did speak there was great
insight and gravity to everything she said. Still, it was Benjamin whom they all
seemed to revolve around, as if he had some invisible magnetism the others
depended upon for their balance. I saw Eleazar staring at the boy with wide eyes
and assumed Benjamin had a talent that drew the others to him.
“It’s not that,” Edward told me when we were alone that night. “His gift is so
singular that Amun is terrified of losing him. Much like we had planned to keep
Renesmee from Aro’s knowledge”—he sighed—“Amun has been keeping
Benjamin from Aro’s attention. Amun created Benjamin, knowing he would be
special.”
“What can he do?”
“Something Eleazar’s never seen before. Something I’ve never heard of.
Something that even your shield would do nothing against.” He grinned his
crooked smile at me. “He can actually influence the elements—earth, wind, water,
and fire. True physical manipulation, no illusion of the mind. Benjamin’s still
experimenting with it, and Amun tries to mold him into a weapon. But you see
how independent Benjamin is. He won’t be used.”
“You like him,” I surmised from the tone of his voice.
“He has a very clear sense of right and wrong. I like his attitude.”
Amun’s attitude was something else, and he and Kebi kept to themselves, though
Benjamin and Tia were well on their way to being fast friends with both the
Denali and the Irish covens. We hoped that Carlisle’s return would ease the
remaining tension with Amun.
Emmett and Rose sent individuals—any nomad friends of Carlisle’s that they
could track down.
445
Garrett came first—a tall, rangy vampire with eager ruby eyes and long sandy hair
he kept tied back with a leather thong—and it was apparent immediately that he
was an adventurer. I imagined that we could have presented him with any
challenge and he would have accepted, just to test himself. He fell in quickly with
the Denali sisters, asking endless questions about their unusual lifestyle. I
wondered if vegetarianism was another challenge he would try, just to see if he
could do it.
Mary and Randall also came—friends already, though they did not travel
together. They listened to Renesmee’s story and stayed to witness like the others.
Like the Denalis, they considered what they would do if the Volturi did not pause
for explanations. All three of the nomads toyed with the idea of standing with us.
Of course, Jacob got more surly with each new addition. He kept his distance
when he could, and when he couldn’t he grumbled to Renesmee that someone
was going to have to provide an index if anyone expected him to keep all the new
bloodsuckers’ names straight.*
Carlisle and Esme returned a week after they had gone, Emmett and Rosalie just
a few days later, and all of us felt better when they were home. Carlisle brought
one more friend home with him, though friend might have been the wrong term.
Alistair was a misanthropic English vampire who counted Carlisle as his closest
acquaintance, though he could hardly stand a visit more than once a century.
Alistair very much preferred to wander alone, and Carlisle had called in a lot of
favors to get him here. He shunned all company, and it was clear he didn’t have
any admirers in the gathered covens.
The brooding dark-haired vampire took Carlisle at his word about Renesmee’s
origins, refusing, like Amun, to touch her. Edward told Carlisle, Esme, and me
that Alistair was afraid to be here, but more afraid of not knowing the outcome.
He was deeply suspicious of all authority, and therefore naturally suspicious of
the Volturi. What was happening now seemed to confirm all his fears.
“Of course, now they’ll know I was here,” we heard him grumble to himself in the
attic—his preferred spot to sulk. “No way to keep it from Aro at this point.
Centuries on the run, that’s what this will mean. Everyone Carlisle’s talked to in
the last decade will be on their list. I can’t believe I got myself sucked into this
mess. What a fine way to treat your friends.”
But if he was right about having to run from the Volturi, at least he had more
hope of doing that than the rest of us. Alistair was a tracker, though not nearly as
precise and efficient as Demetri. Alistair just felt an elusive pull toward whatever
he was seeking. But that pull would be enough to tell him which direction to
run—the opposite direction from Demetri.
And then another pair of unexpected friends arrived—unexpected, because
neither Carlisle nor Rosalie had been able to contact the Amazons.
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“Carlisle,” the taller of the two very tall feline women greeted him when they
arrived. Both of them seemed as if they’d been stretched—long arms and legs,
long fingers, long black braids, and long faces with long noses. They wore nothing
but animal skins—hide vests and tight-fitting pants that laced on the sides with
leather ties. It wasn’t just their eccentric clothes that made them seem wild but
everything about them, from their restless crimson eyes to their sudden, darting
movements. I’d never met any vampires less civilized.
But Alice had sent them, and that was interesting news, to put it mildly. Why was
Alice in South America? Just because she’d seen that no one else would be able to
get in touch with the Amazons?
“Zafrina and Senna! But where’s Kachiri?” Carlisle asked. “I’ve never seen you
three apart.”
“Alice told us we needed to separate,” Zafrina answered in the rough, deep voice
that matched her wild appearance. “It’s uncomfortable to be away from each
other, but Alice assured us that you needed us here, while she very much needed
Kachiri somewhere else. That’s all she would tell us, except that there was a great
hurry… ?” Zafrina’s statement trailed off into a question, and—with the tremor of
nerves that never went away no matter how often I did this—I brought Renesmee
out to meet them.
Despite their fierce appearance, they listened very calmly to our story, and then
allowed Renesmee to prove the point. They were every bit as taken with
Renesmee as any of the other vampires, but I couldn’t help worrying as I watched
their swift, jerky movements so close beside her. Senna was always near Zafrina,
never speaking, but it wasn’t the same as Amun and Kebi. Kebi’s manner seemed
obedient; Senna and Zafrina were more like two limbs of one organism—Zafrina
just happened to be the mouthpiece.
The news about Alice was oddly comforting. Clearly, she was on some obscure
mission of her own as she avoided whatever Aro had planned for her.
Edward was thrilled to have the Amazons with us, because Zafrina was
enormously talented; her gift could make a very dangerous offensive weapon. Not
that Edward was asking for Zafrina to side with us in the battle, but if the Volturi
did not pause when they saw our witnesses, perhaps they would pause for a
different kind of scene.
“It’s a very straightforward illusion,” Edward explained when it turned out that I
couldn’t see anything, as usual. Zafrina was intrigued and amused by my
immunity—something she’d never encountered before—and she hovered
restlessly while Edward described what I was missing. Edward’s eyes unfocused
slightly as he continued. “She can make most people see whatever she wants
them to see—see that, and nothing else. For example, right now I would appear to
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be alone in the middle of a rain forest. It’s so clear I might possibly believe it,
except for the fact that I can still feel you in my arms.”
Zafrina’s lips twitched into her hard version of a smile. A second later, Edward’s
eyes focused again, and he grinned back.
“Impressive,” he said.
Renesmee was fascinated with the conversation, and she reached out fearlessly
toward Zafrina.
“Can I see?” she asked.
“What would you like to see?” Zafrina asked.
“What you showed Daddy.”
Zafrina nodded, and I watched anxiously as Renesmee’s eyes stared blankly into
space. A second later, Renesmee’s dazzling smile lit up her face.
“More,” she commanded.
After that, it was hard to keep Renesmee away from Zafrina and her pretty
pictures. I worried, because I was quite sure that Zafrina was able to create
images that were not pretty at all. But through Renesmee’s thoughts I could see
Zafrina’s visions for myself—they were as clear as any of Renesmee’s own
memories, like they were real—and thus judge for myself whether they were
appropriate or not.
Though I didn’t give her up easily, I had to admit it was a good thing Zafrina was
keeping Renesmee entertained. I needed my hands. I had so much to learn, both
physically and mentally, and the time was so short.
My first attempt at learning to fight did not go well.
Edward had me pinned in about two seconds. But instead of letting me wrestle
my way free—which I absolutely could have—he’d leaped up and away from me. I
knew immediately that something was wrong; he was still as stone, staring across
the meadow we were practicing in.
“I’m sorry, Bella,” he said.
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s go again.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? We just started.”
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He didn’t answer.
“Look, I know I’m no good at this, but I can’t get better if you don’t help me.”
He said nothing. Playfully, I sprang at him. He made no defense at all, and we
both fell to the ground. He was motionless as I pressed my lips to his jugular.
“I win,” I announced.
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
“Edward? What’s wrong? Why won’t you teach me?”
A full minute passed before he spoke again.
“I just can’t… bear it. Emmett and Rosalie know as much as I do. Tanya and
Eleazar probably know more. Ask someone else.”
“That’s not fair! You’re good at this. You helped Jasper before—you fought with
him and all the others, too. Why not me? What did I do wrong?”
He sighed, exasperated. His eyes were dark, barely any gold to lighten the black.
“Looking at you that way, analyzing you as a target. Seeing all the ways I can kill
you . . .” He flinched. “It just makes it too real for me. We don’t have so much
time that it will really make a difference who your teacher is. Anyone can teach
you the fundamentals.”
I scowled.
He touched my pouting lower lip and smiled. “Besides, it’s unnecessary. The
Volturi will stop. They will be made to understand.”
“But if they don’t! I need to learn this.”
“Find another teacher.”
That was not our last conversation on the subject, but I never swayed him an inch
from his decision.
Emmett was more than willing to help, though his teaching felt to me a lot like
revenge for all the lost arm-wrestling matches. If I could still bruise, I would have
been purple from head to toe. Rose, Tanya, and Eleazar all were patient and
supportive. Their lessons reminded me of Jasper’s fighting instructions to the
others last June, though those memories were fuzzy and indistinct. Some of the
visitors found my education entertaining, and some even offered assistance. The
nomad Garrett took a few turns—he was a surprisingly good teacher; he
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interacted so easily with others in general that I wondered how he’d never found
a coven. I even fought once with Zafrina while Renesmee watched from Jacob’s
arms. I learned several tricks, but I never asked for her help again. In truth,
though I liked Zafrina very much and I knew she wouldn’t really hurt me, the
wild woman scared me to death.
I learned many things from my teachers, but I had the sense that my knowledge
was still impossibly basic. I had no idea how many seconds I would last against
Alec and Jane. I only prayed that it would be long enough to help.
Every minute of the day that I wasn’t with Renesmee or learning to fight, I was in
the backyard working with Kate, trying to push my internal shield outside of my
own brain to protect someone else. Edward encouraged me in this training. I
knew he hoped I would find a way of contributing that satisfied me while also
keeping me out of the line of fire.
It was just so hard. There was nothing to get a hold of, nothing solid to work with.
I had only my raging desire to be of use, to be able to keep Edward, Renesmee,
and as much of my family as possible safe with me. Over and over I tried to force
the nebulous shield outside of myself, with only faint, sporadic success. It felt like
I was wrestling to stretch an invisible rubber band—a band that would change
from concrete tangibility into insubstantial smoke at any random moment.
Only Edward was willing to be our guinea pig—to receive shock after shock from
Kate while I grappled incompetently with the insides of my head. We worked for
hours at a time, and I felt like I should be covered in sweat from the exertion, but
of course my perfect body didn’t betray me that way. My weariness was all
mental.
It killed me that it was Edward who had to suffer, my arms wrapped uselessly
around him while he winced over and over from Kate’s “low” setting. I tried as
hard as I could to push my shield around us both; every now and then I would get
it, and then it would slip away again.
I hated this practice, and I wished that Zafrina would help instead of Kate. Then
all Edward would have to do was look at Zafrina’s illusions until I could stop him
from seeing them. But Kate insisted that I needed better motivation—by which
she meant my hatred of watching Edward’s pain. I was beginning to doubt her
assertion from the first day we’d met—that she wasn’t sadistic about the use of
her gift. She seemed to be enjoying herself to me.
“Hey,” Edward said cheerfully, trying to hide any evidence of distress in his voice.
Anything to keep me from fighting practice. “That one barely stung. Good job,
Bella.”
I took a deep breath, trying to grasp exactly what I’d done right. I tested the
elastic band, struggling to force it to remain solid as I stretched it away from me.
450
“Again, Kate,” I grunted through my clenched teeth.
Kate pressed her palm to Edward’s shoulder.
He sighed in relief. “Nothing that time.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t low, either.”
“Good,” I huffed.
“Get ready,” she told me, and reached out to Edward again.
This time he shuddered, and a low breath hissed between his teeth.
“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” I chanted, biting my lip. Why couldn’t I get this right?
“You’re doing an amazing job, Bella,” Edward said, pulling me tight against him.
“You’ve really only been working at this for a few days and you’re already
projecting sporadically. Kate, tell her how well she’s doing.”
Kate pursed her lips. “I don’t know. She’s obviously got tremendous ability, and
we’re only beginning to touch it. She can do better, I’m sure. She’s just lacking
incentive.”
I stared at her in disbelief, my lips automatically curling back from my teeth. How
could she think I lacked motivation with her shocking Edward right here in front
of me?
I heard murmurs from the audience that had grown steadily as I practiced—only
Eleazar, Carmen, and Tanya at first, but then Garrett had wandered over, then
Benjamin and Tia, Siobhan and Maggie, and now even Alistair was peering down
from a window on the third story. The spectators agreed with Edward; they
thought I was already doing well.
“Kate…,” Edward said in a warning voice as some new course of action occurred
to her, but she was already in motion. She darted along the curve of the river to
where Zafrina, Senna, and Renesmee were walking slowly, Renesmee’s hand in
Zafrina’s as they traded pictures back and forth. Jacob shadowed them from a
few feet behind.
“Nessie,” Kate said—the newcomers had quickly picked up the irritating
nickname, “would you like to come help your mother?”
“No,” I half-snarled.
Edward hugged me reassuringly. I shook him off just as Renesmee flitted across
the yard to me, with Kate, Zafrina, and Senna right behind her.
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“Absolutely not, Kate,” I hissed.
Renesmee reached for me, and I opened my arms automatically. She curled into
me, pressing her head into the hollow beneath my shoulder.
“But Momma, I want to help,” she said in a determined voice. Her hand rested
against my neck, reinforcing her desire with images of the two of us together, a
team.
“No,” I said, quickly backing away. Kate had taken a deliberate step in my
direction, her hand stretched toward us.
“Stay away from us, Kate,” I warned her.
“No.” She began stalking forward. She smiled like a hunter cornering her prey.
I shifted Renesmee so that she was clinging to my back, still backing away at a
pace that matched Kate’s. Now my hands were free, and if Kate wanted to keep
her hands attached to her wrists, she’d better keep her distance.
Kate probably didn’t understand, never having known for herself the passion of a
mother for her child. She must not have realized just how far past too far she’d
already gone. I was so furious that my vision took on a strange reddish tint, and
my tongue tasted like burning metal. The strength I usually worked to keep
restrained flowed through my muscles, and I knew I could crush her into
diamond-hard rubble if she pushed me to it.
The rage brought every aspect of my being into sharper focus. I could even feel
the elasticity of my shield more exactly now—feel that it was not a band so much
as a layer, a thin film that covered me from head to toe. With the anger rippling
through my body, I had a better sense of it, a tighter hold on it. I stretched it
around myself, out from myself, swaddling Renesmee completely inside it, just in
case Kate got past my guard.
Kate took another calculated step forward, and a vicious snarl ripped up my
throat and through my clenched teeth.
“Be careful, Kate,” Edward cautioned.
Kate took another step, and then made a mistake even someone as inexpert as I
could recognize. Just a short leap away from me, she looked away, turning her
attention from me to Edward.
Renesmee was secure on my back; I coiled to spring.
“Can you hear anything from Nessie?” Kate asked him, her voice calm and easy.
452
Edward darted into the space between us, blocking my line to Kate.
“No, nothing at all,” he answered. “Now give Bella some space to calm down,
Kate. You shouldn’t goad her like that. I know she doesn’t seem her age, but she’s
only a few months old.”
“We don’t have time to do this gently, Edward. We’re going to have to push her.
We only have a few weeks, and she’s got the potential to—”
“Back off for a minute, Kate.”
Kate frowned but took Edward’s warning more seriously than she’d taken mine.
Renesmee’s hand was on my neck; she was remembering Kate’s attack, showing
me that no harm was meant, that Daddy was in on it.…
This did not pacify me. The spectrum of light I saw still seemed tainted with
crimson. But I was in better control of myself, and I could see the wisdom of
Kate’s words. The anger helped me. I would learn faster under pressure.
That didn’t mean I liked it.
“Kate,” I growled. I rested my hand on the small of Edward’s back. I could still
feel my shield like a strong, flexible sheet around Renesmee and me. I pushed it
farther, forcing it around Edward. There was no sign of a flaw in the stretchy
fabric, no threat of a tear. I panted with the effort, and my words came out
sounding breathless rather than furious. “Again,” I said to Kate. “Edward only.”
She rolled her eyes but flitted forward and pressed her palm to Edward’s
shoulder.
“Nothing,” Edward said. I heard the smile in his voice.
“And now?” Kate asked.
“Still nothing.”
“And now?” This time, there was the sound of strain in her voice.
“Nothing at all.”
Kate grunted and stepped away.
“Can you see this?” Zafrina asked in her deep, wild voice, staring intently at the
three of us. Her English was strangely accented, her words pulling up in
unexpected places.
453
“I don’t see anything I shouldn’t,” Edward said.
“And you, Renesmee?” Zafrina asked.
Renesmee smiled at Zafrina and shook her head.
My fury had almost entirely ebbed, and I clenched my teeth together, panting
faster as I pushed out against the elastic shield; it felt like it was getting heavier
the longer I held it. It pulled back, dragging inward.
“No one panic,” Zafrina warned the little group watching me. “I want to see how
far she can extend.”
There was a shocked gasp from everyone there—Eleazar, Carmen, Tanya, Garrett,
Benjamin, Tia, Siobhan, Maggie—everyone but Senna, who seemed prepared for
whatever Zafrina was doing. The others’ eyes were blank, their expressions
anxious.
“Raise your hand when you get your sight back,” Zafrina instructed. “Now, Bella.
See how many you can shield.”
My breath came out in a huff. Kate was the closest person to me besides Edward
and Renesmee, but even she was about ten feet away. I locked my jaw and
shoved, trying to heave the resisting, resilient safeguard farther from myself. Inch
by inch I drove it toward Kate, fighting the reaction that fought back with every
fraction that I gained. I only watched Kate’s anxious expression while I worked,
and I groaned quietly with relief when her eyes blinked and focused. She raised
her hand.
“Fascinating!” Edward murmured under his breath. “It’s like one-way glass. I can
read everything they’re thinking, but they can’t reach me behind it. And I can
hear Renesmee, though I couldn’t when I was on the outside. I’ll bet Kate could
shock me now, because she’s underneath the umbrella. I still can’t hear you…
hmmm. How does that work? I wonder if . . .”
He continued to mumble to himself, but I couldn’t listen to the words. I ground
my teeth together, struggling to force the shield out to Garrett, who was closest to
Kate. His hand came up.
“Very good,” Zafrina complimented me. “Now—”
But she’d spoken too soon; with a sharp gasp, I felt my shield recoil like a rubber
band stretched too far, snapping back into its original shape. Renesmee,
experiencing for the first time the blindness Zafrina had conjured for the others,
trembled against my back. Wearily, I fought back against the elastic pull, forcing
the shield to include her again.
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“Can I have a minute?” I panted. Since I’d become a vampire, I hadn’t felt the
need to rest even once before this moment. It was unnerving to feel so drained
and yet so strong at the same time.
“Of course,” Zafrina said, and the spectators relaxed as she let them see again.
“Kate,” Garrett called as the others murmured and drifted slightly away,
disturbed by the moment of blindness; vampires were not used to feeling
vulnerable. The tall, sandy-haired Garrett was the only non-gifted immortal who
seemed drawn to my practice sessions. I wondered what the lure was for the
adventurer.
“I wouldn’t, Garrett,” Edward cautioned.
Garrett continued toward Kate despite the warning, his lips pursed in
speculation. “They say you can put a vampire flat on his back.”
“Yes,” she agreed. Then, with a sly smile, she wiggled her fingers playfully at him.
“Curious?”
Garrett shrugged. “That’s something I’ve never seen. Seems like it might be a bit
of an exaggeration. . . .”
“Maybe,” Kate said, her face suddenly serious. “Maybe it only works on the weak
or the young. I’m not sure. You look strong, though. Perhaps you could withstand
my gift.” She stretched her hand out to him, palm up—a clear invitation. Her lips
twitched, and I was pretty sure her grave expression was an attempt to hustle
him.
Garrett grinned at the challenge. Very confidently, he touched her palm with his
index finger.
And then, with a loud gasp, his knees buckled and he keeled over backward. His
head hit a piece of granite with a sharp cracking noise. It was shocking to watch.
My instincts recoiled against seeing an immortal incapacitated that way; it was
profoundly wrong.
“I told you so,” Edward muttered.
Garrett’s eyelids trembled for a few seconds, and then his eyes opened wide. He
stared up at the smirking Kate, and a wondering smile lit his face.
“Wow,” he said.
“Did you enjoy that?” she asked skeptically.
455
“I’m not crazy,” he laughed, shaking his head as he got slowly to his knees, “but
that was sure something!”
“That’s what I hear.”
Edward rolled his eyes.
And then there was a low commotion from the front yard. I heard Carlisle
speaking over a babble of surprised voices.
“Did Alice send you?” he asked someone, his voice unsure, slightly upset.
Another unexpected guest?
Edward darted into the house and most of the others imitated him. I followed
more slowly, Renesmee still perched on my back. I would give Carlisle a moment.
Let him warm up the new guest, prepare him or her or them for the idea of what
was coming.
I pulled Renesmee into my arms as I walked cautiously around the house to enter
through the kitchen door, listening to what I couldn’t see.
“No one sent us,” a deep whispery voice answered Carlisle’s question. I was
immediately reminded of the ancient voices of Aro and Caius, and I froze just
inside the kitchen.
I knew the front room was crowded—almost everyone had gone in to see the
newest visitors—but there was barely any noise. Shallow breathing, that was all.
Carlisle’s voice was wary as he responded. “Then what brings you here now?”
“Word travels,” a different voice answered, just as feathery as the first. “We heard
hints that Volturi were moving against you. There were whispers that you would
not stand alone. Obviously, the whispers were true. This is an impressive
gathering.”
“We are not challenging the Volturi,” Carlisle answered in a strained tone. “There
has been a misunderstanding, that is all. A very serious misunderstanding, to be
sure, but one we’re hoping to clear up. What you see are witnesses. We just need
the Volturi to listen. We didn’t—”
“We don’t care what they say you did,” the first voice interrupted. “And we don’t
care if you broke the law.”
“No matter how egregiously,” the second inserted.
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“We’ve been waiting a millennium and a half for the Italian scum to be
challenged,” said the first. “If there is any chance they will fall, we will be here to
see it.”
“Or even to help defeat them,” the second added. They spoke in a smooth
tandem, their voices so similar that less sensitive ears would assume there was
only one speaker. “If we think you have a chance of success.”
“Bella?” Edward called to me in a hard voice. “Bring Renesmee here, please.
Maybe we should test our Romanian visitors’ claims.”
It helped to know that probably half of the vampires in the other room would
come to Renesmee’s defense if these Romanians were upset by her. I didn’t like
the sound of their voices, or the dark menace in their words. As I walked into the
room, I could see that I was not alone in that assessment. Most of the motionless
vampires glared with hostile eyes, and a few—Carmen, Tanya, Zafrina, and
Senna—repositioned themselves subtly into defensive poses between the
newcomers and Renesmee.
The vampires at the door were both slight and short, one dark-haired and the
other with hair so ashy blond that it looked pale gray. They had the same
powdery look to their skin as the Volturi, though I thought it was not so
pronounced. I couldn’t be sure about that, as I had never seen the Volturi except
with human eyes; I could not make a perfect comparison. Their sharp, narrow
eyes were dark burgundy, with no milky film. They wore very simple black clothes
that could pass as modern but hinted at older designs.
The dark one grinned when I came into view. “Well, well, Carlisle. You have been
naughty, haven’t you?”
“She’s not what you think, Stefan.”
“And we don’t care either way,” the blonde responded. “As we said before.”
“Then you’re welcome to observe, Vladimir, but it is definitely not our plan to
challenge the Volturi, as we said before.”
“Then we’ll just cross our fingers,” Stefan began.
“And hope we get lucky,” finished Vladimir.
In the end, we had pulled together seventeen witnesses—the Irish, Siobhan,
Liam, and Maggie; the Egyptians, Amun, Kebi, Benjamin, and Tia; the Amazons,
Zafrina and Senna; the Romanians, Vladimir and Stefan; and the nomads,
Charlotte and Peter, Garrett, Alistair, Mary, and Randall—to supplement our
family of eleven. Tanya, Kate, Eleazar, and Carmen insisted on being counted as
part of our family.
457
Aside from the Volturi, it was probably the largest friendly gathering of mature
vampires in immortal history.
We all were beginning to be a little bit hopeful. Even I couldn’t help it. Renesmee
had won over so many in such a brief time. The Volturi only had to listen for just
the tiniest second. . . .
The last two surviving Romanians—focused only on their bitter resentment of the
ones who had overthrown their empire fifteen hundred years earlier—took
everything in stride. They would not touch Renesmee, but they showed no
aversion to her. They seemed mysteriously delighted by our alliance with the
werewolves. They watched me practice my shield with Zafrina and Kate, watched
Edward answer unspoken questions, watched Benjamin pull geysers of water
from the river or sharp gusts of wind from the still air with just his mind, and
their eyes glowed with their fierce hope that the Volturi had finally met their
match.
We did not hope for the same things, but we all hoped.
458
33. FORGERY
“Charlie, we’ve still got that strictly need-to-know company situation going. I
know it’s been more than a week since you saw Renesmee, but a visit is just not a
good idea right now. How about I bring Renesmee over to see you?”
Charlie was quiet for so long that I wondered if he heard the strain beneath my
façade.
But then he muttered, “Need to know, ugh,” and I realized it was just his wariness
of the supernatural that made him slow to respond.
“Okay, kid,” Charlie said. “Can you bring her over this morning? Sue’s bringing
me lunch. She’s just as horrified by my cooking as you were when you first
showed up.”
Charlie laughed and then sighed for the old days.
“This morning will be perfect.” The sooner the better. I’d already put this off too
long.
“Is Jake coming with you guys?”
Though Charlie didn’t know anything about werewolf imprinting, no one could be
oblivious to the attachment between Jacob and Renesmee.
“Probably.” There was no way Jacob would voluntarily miss an afternoon with
Renesmee sans bloodsuckers.
“Maybe I should invite Billy, too,” Charlie mused. “But… hmm. Maybe another
time.”
I was only half paying attention to Charlie—enough to notice the strange
reluctance in his voice when he spoke of Billy, but not enough to worry what that
was about. Charlie and Billy were grown-ups; if there was something going on
between them, they could figure it out for themselves. I had too many more
important things to obsess over.
“See you in a few,” I told him, and hung up.
This trip was about more than protecting my father from the twenty-seven oddly
matched vampires—who all had sworn not to kill anyone in a three-hundred-mile
radius, but still… Obviously, no human being should get anywhere near this
group. This was the excuse I’d given Edward: I was taking Renesmee to Charlie so
that he wouldn’t decide to come here. It was a good reason for leaving the house,
but not my real reason at all.
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“Why can’t we take your Ferrari?” Jacob complained when he met me in the
garage. I was already in Edward’s Volvo with Renesmee.
Edward had gotten around to revealing my after car; as he’d suspected, I had not
been capable of showing the appropriate enthusiasm. Sure, it was pretty and fast,
but I liked to run.
“Too conspicuous,” I answered. “We could go on foot, but that would freak
Charlie out.”
Jacob grumbled but got into the front seat. Renesmee climbed from my lap to his.
“How are you?” I asked him as I pulled out of the garage.
“How do you think?” Jacob asked bitingly. “I’m sick of all these reeking
bloodsuckers.” He saw my expression and spoke before I could answer. “Yeah, I
know, I know. They’re the good guys, they’re here to help, they’re going to save us
all. Etcetera, etcetera. Say what you want, I still think Dracula One and Dracula
Two are creep-tacular.”
I had to smile. The Romanians weren’t my favorite guests, either. “I don’t
disagree with you there.”
Renesmee shook her head but said nothing; unlike the rest of us, she found the
Romanians strangely fascinating. She’d made the effort to speak to them aloud
since they would not let her touch them. Her question was about their unusual
skin and, though I was afraid they might be offended, I was kind of glad she’d
asked. I was curious, too.
They hadn’t seemed upset by her interest. Maybe a little rueful.
“We sat still for a very long time, child,” Vladimir had answered, with Stefan
nodding along but not continuing Vladimir’s sentences as he often did.
“Contemplating our own divinity. It was a sign of our power that everything came
to us. Prey, diplomats, those seeking our favor. We sat on our thrones and
thought ourselves gods. We didn’t notice for a long time that we were changing—
almost petrifying. I suppose the Volturi did us one favor when they burned our
castles. Stefan and I, at least, did not continue to petrify. Now the Volturi’s eyes
are filmed with dusty scum, but ours are bright. I imagine that will give us an
advantage when we gouge theirs from their sockets.”
I tried to keep Renesmee away from them after that.
“How long do we get to hang out with Charlie?” Jacob asked, interrupting my
thoughts. He was visibly relaxing as we pulled away from the house and all its
new inmates. It made me happy that I didn’t really count as a vampire to him. I
was still just Bella.
460
“For quite a while, actually.”
The tone of my voice caught his attention.
“Is something going on here besides visiting your dad?”
“Jake, you know how you’re pretty good at controlling your thoughts around
Edward?”
He raised one thick black brow. “Yeah?”
I just nodded, cutting my eyes to Renesmee. She was looking out the window, and
I couldn’t tell how interested she was in our conversation, but I decided not to
risk going any further.
Jacob waited for me to add something else, and then his lower lip pushed out
while he thought about what little I’d said.
As we drove in silence, I squinted through the annoying contacts into the cold
rain; it wasn’t quite cold enough for snow. My eyes were not as ghoulish as they
had been in the beginning—definitely closer to a dull reddish orange than to
bright crimson. Soon they’d be amber enough for me to quit the contacts. I hoped
the change wouldn’t upset Charlie too much.
Jacob was still chewing over our truncated conversation when we got to Charlie’s.
We didn’t talk as we walked at a quick human pace through the falling rain. My
dad was waiting for us; he had the door open before I could knock.
“Hey, guys! It seems like it’s been years! Look at you, Nessie! Come to Grampa! I
swear you’ve grown half a foot. And you look skinny, Ness.” He glared at me.
“Aren’t they feeding you up there?”
“It’s just the growth spurt,” I muttered. “Hey, Sue,” I called over his shoulder. The
smell of chicken, tomato, garlic, and cheese issued from the kitchen; it probably
smelled good to everyone else. I could also smell fresh pine and packing dust.
Renesmee flashed her dimples. She never spoke in front of Charlie.
“Well, come on in out of the cold, kids. Where’s my son-in-law?”
“Entertaining friends,” Jacob said, and then snorted. “You’re so lucky you’re out
of the loop, Charlie. That’s all I’m going to say.”
I punched Jacob lightly in the kidney while Charlie cringed.
“Ow,” Jacob complained under his breath; well, I’d thought I’d punched lightly.
461
“Actually, Charlie, I have some errands to run.”
Jacob shot a glance at me but said nothing.
“Behind on your Christmas shopping, Bells? You only have a few days, you
know.”
“Yeah, Christmas shopping,” I said lamely. That explained the packing dust.
Charlie must have put the old decorations up.
“Don’t worry, Nessie,” he whispered in her ear. “I got you covered if your mom
drops the ball.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but in truth, I hadn’t thought about the holidays at all.
“Lunch’s on the table,” Sue called from the kitchen. “C’mon, guys.”
“See you later, Dad,” I said, and exchanged a quick look with Jacob. Even if he
couldn’t help but think about this near Edward, at least there wasn’t much for
him to share. He had no idea what I was up to.
Of course, I thought to myself as I got into the car, it wasn’t like I had much idea,
either.
The roads were slick and dark, but driving didn’t intimidate me anymore. My
reflexes were well up to the job, and I barely paid attention to the road. The
problem was keeping my speed from attracting attention when I had company. I
wanted to be done with today’s mission, to have the mystery sorted out so that I
could get back to the vital task of learning. Learning to protect some, learning to
kill others.
I was getting better and better with my shield. Kate didn’t feel the need to
motivate me anymore—it wasn’t hard to find reasons to feel angry, now that I
knew that was the key—and so I mostly worked with Zafrina. She was pleased
with my extension; I was able to cover almost a ten-foot area for more than a
minute, though it exhausted me. This morning she’d been trying to find out if I
could push the shield away from my mind altogether. I didn’t see what the use of
that would be, but Zafrina thought it would help strengthen me, like exercising
muscles in the stomach and back rather than just the arms. Eventually, you could
lift more weight when all the muscles were stronger.
I wasn’t very good at it. I had only gotten one glimpse of the jungle river she was
trying to show me.
But there were different ways to prepare for what was coming, and with only two
weeks left, I worried that I might be neglecting the most important. Today I
would rectify that oversight.
462
I’d memorized the appropriate maps, and I had no problem finding my way to the
address that didn’t exist online, the one for J. Jenks. My next step would be Jason
Jenks at the other address, the one Alice had not given me.
To say that it wasn’t a nice neighborhood would be an understatement. The most
nondescript of all the Cullens’ cars was still outrageous on this street. My old
Chevy would have looked healthy here. During my human years, I would have
locked the doors and driven away as fast as I dared. As it was, I was a little
fascinated. I tried to imagine Alice in this place for any reason, and failed.
The buildings—all three stories, all narrow, all leaning slightly as if bowed by the
pounding rain—were mostly old houses divided up into multiple apartments. It
was hard to tell what color the peeling paint was supposed to be. Everything had
faded to shades of gray. A few of the buildings had businesses on the first floor: a
dirty bar with the windows painted black, a psychic’s supply store with neon
hands and tarot cards glowing fitfully on the door, a tattoo parlor, and a daycare
with duct tape holding the broken front window together. There were no lamps
on inside any of the rooms, though it was grim enough outside that the humans
should have needed the light. I could hear the low mumbling of voices in the
distance; it sounded like TV.
There were a few people about, two shuffling through the rain in opposite
directions and one sitting on the shallow porch of a boarded-up cut-rate law
office, reading a wet newspaper and whistling. The sound was much too cheerful
for the setting.
I was so bemused by the carefree whistler, I didn’t realize at first that the
abandoned building was right where the address I was looking for should exist.
There were no numbers on the dilapidated place, but the tattoo parlor beside it
was just two numbers off.
I pulled up to the curb and idled for a second. I was getting into that dump one
way or another, but how to do so without the whistler noticing me? I could park
the next street over and come through the back.… There might be more witnesses
on that side. Maybe the rooftops? Was it dark enough for that kind of thing?
“Hey, lady,” the whistler called to me.
I rolled the passenger window down as if I couldn’t hear him.
The man laid his paper aside, and his clothes surprised me, now that I could see
them. Under his long ragged duster, he was a little too well dressed. There was no
breeze to give me the scent, but the sheen on his dark red shirt looked like silk.
His crinkly black hair was tangled and wild, but his dark skin was smooth and
perfect, his teeth white and straight. A contradiction.
463
“Maybe you shouldn’t park that car there, lady,” he said. “It might not be here
when you get back.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said.
I shut off the engine and got out. Perhaps my whistling friend could give me the
answers I needed faster than breaking and entering. I opened my big gray
umbrella—not that I cared, really, about protecting the long cashmere sweaterdress
I wore. It was what a human would do.
The man squinted through the rain at my face, and then his eyes widened. He
swallowed, and I heard his heart accelerate as I approached.
“I’m looking for someone,” I began.
“I’m someone,” he offered with a smile. “What can I do for you, beautiful?”
“Are you J. Jenks?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, and his expression changed from anticipation to understanding.
He got to his feet and examined me with narrowed eyes. “Why’re you looking for
J?”
“That’s my business.” Besides, I didn’t have a clue. “Are you J?”
“No.”
We faced each other for a long moment while his sharp eyes ran up and down the
fitted pearl gray sheath I wore. His gaze finally made it to my face. “You don’t
look like the usual customer.”
“I’m probably not the usual,” I admitted. “But I do need to see him as soon as
possible.”
“I’m not sure what to do,” he admitted.
“Why don’t you tell me your name?”
He grinned. “Max.”
“Nice to meet you, Max. Now, why don’t you tell me what you do for the usual?”
His grin became a frown. “Well, J’s usual clients don’t look a thing like you. Your
kind doesn’t bother with the downtown office. You just go straight up to his fancy
office in the skyscraper.”
I repeated the other address I had, making the list of numbers a question.
464
“Yeah, that’s the place,” he said, suspicious again. “How come you didn’t go
there?”
“This was the address I was given—by a very dependable source.”
“If you were up to any good, you wouldn’t be here.”
I pursed my lips. I’d never been much good at bluffing, but Alice hadn’t left me a
lot of alternatives. “Maybe I’m not up to any good.”
Max’s face turned apologetic. “Look, lady—”
“Bella.”
“Right. Bella. See, I need this job. J pays me pretty good to mostly just hang out
here all day. I want to help you, I do, but—and of course I’m speaking
hypothetically, right? Or off the record, or whatever works for you—but if I pass
somebody through that could get him in trouble, I’m out of work. Do you see my
problem?”
I thought for a minute, chewing on my lip. “You’ve never seen anyone like me
here before? Well, sort of like me. My sister is a lot shorter than me, and she has
dark spiky black hair.”
“J knows your sister?”
“I think so.”
Max pondered this for a moment. I smiled at him, and his breathing stuttered.
“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give J a call and describe you to him. Let him make the
decision.”
What did J. Jenks know? Would my description mean something to him? That
was a troubling thought.
“My last name is Cullen,” I told Max, wondering if that was too much
information. I was starting to get irritated with Alice. Did I really have to be quite
this blind? She could have given me one or two more words.…
“Cullen, got it.”
I watched as he dialed, easily picking out the number. Well, I could call J. Jenks
myself if this didn’t work.
“Hey J, it’s Max. I know I’m never supposed to call you at this number except in
an emergency. . . .”
465
Is there an emergency? I heard faintly from the other end.
“Well, not exactly. It’s this girl who wants to see you. . . .”
I fail to see the emergency in that. Why didn’t you follow normal procedure?
“I didn’t follow normal procedure ’cause she don’t look like any kind of normal—”
Is she a badge?!
“No—”
You can’t be sure about that. Does she look like one of Kubarev’s—?
“No—let me talk, okay? She says you know her sister or something.”
Not likely. What does she look like?
“She looks like . . .” His eyes ran from my face to my shoes appreciatively. “Well,
she looks like a freaking supermodel, that’s what she looks like.” I smiled and he
winked at me, then went on. “Rocking body, pale as a sheet, dark brown hair
almost to her waist, needs a good night’s sleep—any of this sounding familiar?”
No, it doesn’t. I’m not happy that you let your weakness for pretty women
interrupt—
“Yeah, so I’m a sucker for the pretty ones, what’s wrong with that? I’m sorry I
bothered you, man. Just forget it.”
“Name,” I whispered.
“Oh right. Wait,” Max said. “She says her name is Bella Cullen. That help?”
There was a beat of dead silence, and then the voice on the other end was
abruptly screaming, using a lot of words you didn’t often hear outside of truck
stops. Max’s whole expression changed; all the joking vanished and his lips went
pale.
“Because you didn’t ask!” Max yelled back, panicked.
There was another pause while J collected himself.
Beautiful and pale? J asked, a tiny bit calmer.
“I said that, didn’t I?”
466
Beautiful and pale? What did this man know about vampires? Was he one of us
himself? I wasn’t prepared for that kind of confrontation. I gritted my teeth.
What had Alice gotten me into?
Max waited for a minute through another volley of shouted insults and
instructions and then glanced at me with eyes that were almost frightened. “But
you only meet downtown clients on Thursdays—okay, okay! On it.” He slid his
phone shut.
“He wants to see me?” I asked brightly.
Max glowered. “You could have told me you were a priority client.”
“I didn’t know I was.”
“I thought you might be a cop,” he admitted. “I mean, you don’t look like a cop.
But you act kind of weird, beautiful.”
I shrugged.
“Drug cartel?” he guessed.
“Who, me?” I asked.
“Yeah. Or your boyfriend or whatever.”
“Nope, sorry. I’m not really a fan of drugs, and neither is my husband. Just say
no and all that.”
Max cussed under his breath. “Married. Can’t catch a break.”
I smiled.
“Mafia?”
“Nope.”
“Diamond smuggling?”
“Please! Is that the kind of people you usually deal with, Max? Maybe you need a
new job.”
I had to admit, I was enjoying myself a little. I hadn’t interacted with humans
much besides Charlie and Sue. It was entertaining to watch him flounder. I was
also pleased at how easy it was not to kill him.
“You’ve got to be involved in something big. And bad,” he mused.
467
“It’s not really like that.”
“That’s what they all say. But who else needs papers? Or can afford to pay J’s
prices for them, I should say. None of my business, anyway,” he said, and then
muttered the word married again.
He gave me an entirely new address with basic directions, and then watched me
drive away with suspicious, regretful eyes.
At this point, I was ready for almost anything—some kind of James Bond villain’s
high-tech lair seemed appropriate. So I thought Max must have given me the
wrong address as a test. Or maybe the lair was subterranean, underneath this
very commonplace strip mall nestled up against a wooded hill in a nice family
neighborhood.
I pulled into an open spot and looked up at a tastefully subtle sign that read
JASON SCOTT, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
The office inside was beige with celery green accents, inoffensive and
unremarkable. There was no scent of vampire here, and that helped me relax.
Nothing but unfamiliar human. A fish tank was set into the wall, and a blandly
pretty blond receptionist sat behind the desk.
“Hello,” she greeted me. “How can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mr. Scott.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Not exactly.”
She smirked a little. “It could be a while, then. Why don’t you have a seat while
I—”
April! a man’s demanding voice squawked from the phone on her desk. I’m
expecting a Ms. Cullen shortly.
I smiled and pointed to myself.
Send her in immediately. Do you understand? I don’t care what it’s
interrupting.
I could hear something else in his voice besides impatience. Stress. Nerves.
“She’s just arrived,” April said as soon as she could speak.
What? Send her in! What are you waiting for?
468
“Right away, Mr. Scott!” She got to her feet, fluttering her hands as she led the
way down a short hallway, offering me coffee or tea or anything else I might have
wanted.
“Here you are,” she said as she ushered me through the door into a power office,
complete with heavy wooden desk and vanity wall.
“Close the door behind you,” a raspy tenor voice ordered.
I examined the man behind the desk while April made a hasty retreat. He was
short and balding, probably around fifty-five, with a paunch. He wore a red silk
tie with a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and his navy blazer hung over the back of
his chair. He was also trembling, blanched to a sickly paste color, with sweat
beading on his forehead; I imagined an ulcer churning away under the spare tire.
J recovered himself and rose unsteadily from his chair. He reached his hand
across the desk.
“Ms. Cullen. What an absolute delight.”
I crossed to him and shook his hand quickly once. He cringed slightly at my cold
skin but did not seem particularly surprised by it.
“Mr. Jenks. Or do you prefer Scott?”
He winced again. “Whatever you wish, of course.”
“How about you call me Bella, and I’ll call you J?”
“Like old friends,” he agreed, mopping a silk handkerchief across his forehead.
He gestured for me to have a seat and took his own. “I must ask, am I finally
meeting Mr. Jasper’s lovely wife?”
I weighed that for a second. So this man knew Jasper, not Alice. Knew him, and
seemed afraid of him, too. “His sister-in-law, actually.”
He pursed his lips, as if he were grasping for meanings just as desperately as I
was.
“I trust Mr. Jasper is in good health?” he asked carefully.
“I’m sure he is in excellent health. He’s on an extended vacation at the moment.”
This seemed to clear up some of J’s confusion. He nodded to himself and templed
his fingers. “Just so. You should have come to the main office. My assistants there
would have put you straight through to me—no need to go through less
hospitable channels.”
469
I just nodded. I wasn’t sure why Alice had given me the ghetto address.
“Ah, well, you’re here now. What can I do for you?”
“Papers,” I said, trying to make my voice sound like I knew what I was talking
about.
“Certainly,” J agreed at once. “Are we talking birth certificates, death certificates,
drivers’ licenses, passports, social security cards… ?”
I took a deep breath and smiled. I owed Max big time.
And then my smile faded. Alice had sent me here for a reason, and I was sure it
was to protect Renesmee. Her last gift to me. The one thing she would know I
needed.
The only reason Renesmee would need a forger was if she was running. And the
only reason Renesmee would be running was if we had lost.
If Edward and I were running with her, she wouldn’t need these documents right
away. I was sure IDs were something Edward knew how to get his hands on or
make himself, and I was sure he knew ways to escape without them. We could
run with her for thousands of miles. We could swim with her across an ocean.
If we were around to save her.
And all the secrecy to keep this out of Edward’s head. Because there was a good
chance that everything he knew, Aro would know. If we lost, Aro would certainly
get the information he craved before he destroyed Edward.
It was as I had suspected. We couldn’t win. But we must have a good shot at
killing Demetri before we lost, giving Renesmee the chance to run.
My still heart felt like a boulder in my chest—a crushing weight. All my hope
faded like fog in the sunshine. My eyes pricked.
Who would I put this on? Charlie? But he was so defenselessly human. And how
would I get Renesmee to him? He was not going to be anywhere close to that
fight. So that left one person. There really had never been anyone else.
I’d thought this through so quickly that J didn’t notice my pause.
“Two birth certificates, two passports, one driver’s license,” I said in a low,
strained tone.
If he noticed the change in my expression, he pretended otherwise.
470
“The names?”
“Jacob… Wolfe. And… Vanessa Wolfe.” Nessie seemed like an okay nickname for
Vanessa. Jacob would get a kick out of the Wolfe thing.
His pen scratched swiftly across a legal pad. “Middle names?”
“Just put something generic in.”
“If you prefer. Ages?”
“Twenty-seven for the man, five for the girl.” Jacob could pull it off. He was a
beast. And at the rate Renesmee was growing, I’d better estimate high. He could
be her stepfather.…
“I’ll need pictures if you prefer finished documents,” J said, interrupting my
thoughts. “Mr. Jasper usually liked to finish them himself.”
Well, that explained why J didn’t know what Alice looked like.
“Hold on,” I said.
This was luck. I had several family pictures shoved in my wallet, and the perfect
one—Jacob holding Renesmee on the front porch steps—was only a month old.
Alice had given it to me just a few days before… Oh. Maybe there wasn’t that
much luck involved after all. Alice knew I had this picture. Maybe she’d even had
some dim flash that I would need it before she gave it to me.
“Here you go.”
J examined the picture for a moment. “Your daughter is very like you.”
I tensed. “She’s more like her father.”
“Who is not this man.” He touched Jacob’s face.
My eyes narrowed, and new sweat beads popped out on J’s shiny head.
“No. That is a very close friend of the family.”
“Forgive me,” he mumbled, and the pen began scratching again. “How soon will
you need the documents?”
“Can I get them in a week?”
“That’s a rush order. It will cost twice as—but forgive me. I forgot with whom I
was speaking.”
471
Clearly, he knew Jasper.
“Just give me a number.”
He seemed hesitant to say it aloud, though I was sure, having dealt with Jasper,
he must have known that price wasn’t really an object. Not even taking into
consideration the bloated accounts that existed all over the world with the
Cullens’ various names on them, there was enough cash stashed all over the
house to keep a small country afloat for a decade; it reminded me of the way there
were always a hundred fishhooks in the back of any drawer at Charlie’s house. I
doubted anyone would even notice the small stack I’d removed in preparation for
today.
J wrote the price down on the bottom of the legal pad.
I nodded calmly. I had more than that with me. I unclasped my bag again and
counted out the right amount—I had it all paper-clipped into five-thousanddollar
increments, so it took no time at all.
“There.”
“Ah, Bella, you don’t really have to give me the entire sum now. It’s customary for
you to save half to ensure delivery.”
I smiled wanly at the nervous man. “But I trust you, J. Besides, I’ll give you a
bonus—the same again when I get the documents.”
“That’s not necessary, I assure you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” It wasn’t like I could take it with me. “So I’ll meet you here
next week at the same time?”
He gave me a pained look. “Actually, I prefer to make such transactions in places
unrelated to my various businesses.”
“Of course. I’m sure I’m not doing this the way you expect.”
“I’m used to having no expectations when it comes to the Cullen family.” He
grimaced and then quickly composed his face again. “Shall we meet at eight
o’clock a week from tonight at The Pacifico? It’s on Union Lake, and the food is
exquisite.”
“Perfect.” Not that I would be joining him for dinner. He actually wouldn’t like it
much if I did.
I rose and shook his hand again. This time he didn’t flinch. But he did seem to
have some new worry on his mind. His mouth was pinched up, his back tense.
472
“Will you have trouble with that deadline?” I asked.
“What?” He looked up, taken off guard by my question. “The deadline? Oh, no.
No worries at all. I will certainly have your documents done on time.”
It would have been nice to have Edward here, so that I would know what J’s real
worries were. I sighed. Keeping secrets from Edward was bad enough; having to
be away from him was almost too much.
“Then I’ll see you in one week.”
473
34. DECLARED
I heard the music before I was out of the car. Edward hadn’t touched his piano
since the night Alice left. Now, as I shut the car door, I heard the song morph
through a bridge and change into my lullaby. Edward was welcoming me home.
I moved slowly as I pulled Renesmee—fast asleep; we’d been gone all day—from
the car. We’d left Jacob at Charlie’s—he’d said he was going to catch a ride home
with Sue. I wondered if he was trying to fill his head with enough trivia to crowd
out the image of the way my face had looked when I’d walked through Charlie’s
door.
As I walked slowly to the Cullen house now, I recognized that the hope and uplift
that seemed almost a visible aura around the big white house had been mine this
morning, too. It felt alien to me now.
I wanted to cry again, hearing Edward play for me. But I pulled it together. I
didn’t want him to be suspicious. I would leave no clues in his mind for Aro if I
could help it.
Edward turned his head and smiled when I came in the door, but kept playing.
“Welcome home,” he said, as if this was just any normal day. As if there weren’t
twelve other vampires in the room involved in various pursuits, and a dozen more
scattered around somewhere. “Did you have a good time with Charlie today?”
“Yes. Sorry I was gone so long. I stepped out to do a little Christmas shopping for
Renesmee. I know it won’t be much of an event, but . . .” I shrugged.
Edward’s lips turned down. He quit playing and spun around on the bench so
that his whole body was facing me. He put one hand on my waist and pulled me
closer. “I hadn’t thought much about it. If you want to make an event of it—”
“No,” I interrupted him. I flinched internally at the idea of trying to fake more
enthusiasm than the bare minimum. “I just didn’t want to let it pass without
giving her something.”
“Do I get to see?”
“If you want. It’s only a little thing.”
Renesmee was completely unconscious, snoring delicately against my neck. I
envied her. It would have been nice to escape reality, even for just a few hours.
Carefully, I fished the little velvet jewelry bag from my clutch without opening the
purse enough for Edward to see the cash I was still carrying.
474
“It caught my eye from the window of an antique store while I was driving by.”
I shook the little golden locket into his palm. It was round with a slender vine
border carved around the outside edge of the circle. Edward popped the tiny
catch and looked inside. There was space for a small picture and, on the opposite
side, an inscription in French.
“Do you know what this says?” he asked in a different tone, more subdued than
before.
“The shopkeeper told me it said something along the lines of ‘more than my own
life.’ Is that right?”
“Yes, he had it right.”
He looked up at me, his topaz eyes probing. I met his gaze for a moment, then
pretended to be distracted by the television.
“I hope she likes it,” I muttered.
“Of course she will,” he said lightly, casually, and I was sure in that second that he
knew I was keeping something from him. I was also sure that he had no idea of
the specifics.
“Let’s take her home,” he suggested, standing and putting his arm around my
shoulders.
I hesitated.
“What?” he demanded.
“I wanted to practice with Emmett a little. . . .” I’d lost the whole day to my vital
errand; it made me feel behind.
Emmett—on the sofa with Rose and holding the remote, of course—looked up
and grinned in anticipation. “Excellent. The forest needs thinning.”
Edward frowned at Emmett and then at me.
“There’s plenty of time for that tomorrow,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I complained. “There’s no such thing as plenty of time
anymore. That concept does not exist. I have a lot to learn and—”
He cut me off. “Tomorrow.”
And his expression was such that not even Emmett argued.
475
I was surprised at how hard it was to go back to a routine that was, after all,
brand new. But stripping away even that little bit of hope I’d been fostering made
everything seem impossible.
I tried to focus on the positives. There was a good chance that my daughter was
going to survive what was coming, and Jacob, too. If they had a future, then that
was a kind of victory, wasn’t it? Our little band must be going to hold their own if
Jacob and Renesmee were going to have the opportunity to run in the first place.
Yes, Alice’s strategy only made sense if we were going to put up a really good
fight. So, a kind of victory there, too, considering that the Volturi had never been
seriously challenged in millennia.
It was not going to be the end of the world. Just the end of the Cullens. The end of
Edward, the end of me.
I preferred it that way—the last part anyway. I would not live without Edward
again; if he was leaving this world, then I would be right behind him.
I wondered idly now and then if there would be anything for us on the other side.
I knew Edward didn’t really believe so, but Carlisle did. I couldn’t imagine it
myself. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine Edward not existing somehow,
somewhere. If we could be together in any place, then that was a happy ending.
And so the pattern of my days continued, just that much harder than before.
We went to see Charlie on Christmas Day, Edward, Renesmee, Jacob, and I. All of
Jacob’s pack were there, plus Sam, Emily, and Sue. It was a big help to have them
there in Charlie’s little rooms, their huge, warm bodies wedged into corners
around his sparsely decorated tree—you could see exactly where he’d gotten
bored and quit—and overflowing his furniture. You could always count on
werewolves to be buzzed about a coming fight, no matter how suicidal. The
electricity of their excitement provided a nice current that disguised my utter lack
of spirit. Edward was, as always, a better actor than I was.
Renesmee wore the locket I’d given her at dawn, and in her jacket pocket was the
MP3 player Edward had given her—a tiny thing that held five thousand songs,
already filled with Edward’s favorites. On her wrist was an intricately braided
Quileute version of a promise ring. Edward had gritted his teeth over that one,
but it didn’t bother me.
Soon, so soon, I would be giving her to Jacob for safekeeping. How could I be
bothered by any symbol of the commitment I was so relying on?
Edward had saved the day by ordering a gift for Charlie, too. It had shown up
yesterday—priority overnight shipping—and Charlie spent all morning reading
the thick instruction manual to his new fishing sonar system.
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From the way the werewolves ate, Sue’s lunch spread must have been good. I
wondered how the gathering would have looked to an outsider. Did we play our
parts well enough? Would a stranger have thought us a happy circle of friends,
enjoying the holiday with casual cheer?
I think Edward and Jacob both were as relieved as I was when it was time to go.
It felt odd to spend energy on the human façade when there were so many more
important things to be doing. I had a hard time concentrating. At the same time,
this was perhaps the last time I would see Charlie. Maybe it was a good thing that
I was too numb to really register that.
I hadn’t seen my mother since the wedding, but I found I could only be glad for
the gradual distancing that had begun two years ago. She was too fragile for my
world. I didn’t want her to have any part of this. Charlie was stronger.
Maybe even strong enough for a goodbye now, but I wasn’t.
It was very quiet in the car; outside, the rain was just a mist, hovering on the edge
between liquid and ice. Renesmee sat on my lap, playing with her locket, opening
and closing it. I watched her and imagined the things I would say to Jacob right
now if I didn’t have to keep my words out of Edward’s head.
If it’s ever safe again, take her to Charlie. Tell him the whole story someday. Tell
him how much I loved him, how I couldn’t bear to leave him even when my
human life was over. Tell him he was the best father. Tell him to pass my love on
to Renée, all my hopes that she will be happy and well. . . .
I would have to give Jacob the documents before it was too late. I would give him
a note for Charlie, too. And a letter for Renesmee. Something for her to read
when I couldn’t tell her I loved her anymore.
There was nothing unusual about the outside of the Cullen house as we pulled
into the meadow, but I could hear some kind of subtle uproar inside. Many low
voices murmured and growled. It sounded intense, and it sounded like an
argument. I could pick out Carlisle’s voice and Amun’s more often than the
others.
Edward parked in front of the house rather than going around to the garage. We
exchanged one wary glance before we got out of the car.
Jacob’s stance changed; his face turned serious and careful. I guessed that he was
in Alpha mode now. Obviously, something had happened, and he was going to get
the information he and Sam would need.
“Alistair is gone,” Edward murmured as we darted up the steps.
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Inside the front room, the main confrontation was physically apparent. Lining
the walls was a ring of spectators, every vampire who had joined us, except for
Alistair and the three involved in the quarrel. Esme, Kebi, and Tia were the
closest to the three vampires in the center; in the middle of the room, Amun was
hissing at Carlisle and Benjamin.
Edward’s jaw tightened and he moved quickly to Esme’s side, towing me by the
hand. I clutched Renesmee tightly to my chest.
“Amun, if you want to go, no one is forcing you to stay,” Carlisle said calmly.
“You’re stealing half my coven, Carlisle!” Amun shrieked, stabbing one finger at
Benjamin. “Is that why you called me here? To steal from me?”
Carlisle sighed, and Benjamin rolled his eyes.
“Yes, Carlisle picked a fight with the Volturi, endangered his whole family, just to
lure me here to my death,” Benjamin said sarcastically. “Be reasonable, Amun.
I’m committed to do the right thing here—I’m not joining any other coven. You
can do whatever you want, of course, as Carlisle has pointed out.”
“This won’t end well,” Amun growled. “Alistair was the only sane one here. We
should all be running.”
“Think of who you’re calling sane,” Tia murmured in a quiet aside.
“We’re all going to be slaughtered!”
“It’s not going to come to a fight,” Carlisle said in a firm voice.
“You say!”
“If it does, you can always switch sides, Amun. I’m sure the Volturi will
appreciate your help.”
Amun sneered at him. “Perhaps that is the answer.”
Carlisle’s answer was soft and sincere. “I wouldn’t hold that against you, Amun.
We have been friends for a long time, but I would never ask you to die for me.”
Amun’s voice was more controlled, too. “But you’re taking my Benjamin down
with you.”
Carlisle put his hand on Amun’s shoulder; Amun shook it off.
“I’ll stay, Carlisle, but it might be to your detriment. I will join them if that’s the
road to survival. You’re all fools to think that you can defy the Volturi.” He
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scowled, then sighed, glanced at Renesmee and me, and added in an exasperated
tone, “I will witness that the child has grown. That’s nothing but the truth.
Anyone would see that.”
“That’s all we’ve ever asked.”
Amun grimaced, “But not all that you are getting, it seems.” He turned on
Benjamin. “I gave you life. You’re wasting it.”
Benjamin’s face looked colder than I’d ever seen it; the expression contrasted
oddly with his boyish features. “It’s a pity you couldn’t replace my will with your
own in the process; perhaps then you would have been satisfied with me.”
Amun’s eyes narrowed. He gestured abruptly to Kebi, and they stalked past us
out the front door.
“He’s not leaving,” Edward said quietly to me, “but he’ll be keeping his distance
even more from now on. He wasn’t bluffing when he spoke of joining the Volturi.”
“Why did Alistair go?” I whispered.
“No one can be positive; he didn’t leave a note. From his mutters, it’s been clear
that he thinks a fight is inevitable. Despite his demeanor, he actually does care
too much for Carlisle to stand with the Volturi. I suppose he decided the danger
was too much.” Edward shrugged.
Though our conversation was clearly just between the two of us, of course
everyone could hear it. Eleazar answered Edward’s comment like it had been
meant for all.
“From the sound of his mumblings, it was a bit more than that. We haven’t
spoken much of the Volturi agenda, but Alistair worried that no matter how
decisively we can prove your innocence, the Volturi will not listen. He thinks they
will find an excuse to achieve their goals here.”
The vampires glanced uneasily at one another. The idea that the Volturi would
manipulate their own sacrosanct law for gain was not a popular idea. Only the
Romanians were composed, their small half-smiles ironic. They seemed amused
at how the others wanted to think well of their ancient enemies.
Many low discussions began at the same time, but it was the Romanians I
listened to. Maybe because the fair-haired Vladimir kept shooting glances in my
direction.
“I do so hope Alistair was right about this,” Stefan murmured to Vladimir. “No
matter the outcome, word will spread. It’s time our world saw the Volturi for
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what they’ve become. They’ll never fall if everyone believes this nonsense about
them protecting our way of life.”
“At least when we ruled, we were honest about what we were,” Vladimir replied.
Stefan nodded. “We never put on white hats and called ourselves saints.”
“I’m thinking the time has come to fight,” Vladimir said. “How can you imagine
we’ll ever find a better force to stand with? Another chance this good?”
“Nothing is impossible. Maybe someday—”
“We’ve been waiting for fifteen hundred years, Stefan. And they’ve only gotten
stronger with the years.” Vladimir paused and looked at me again. He showed no
surprise when he saw that I was watching him, too. “If the Volturi win this
conflict, they will leave with more power than they came with. With every
conquest they add to their strengths. Think of what that newborn alone could
give them”—he jerked his chin toward me—“and she is barely discovering her
gifts. And the earth-mover.” Vladimir nodded toward Benjamin, who stiffened.
Almost everyone was eavesdropping on the Romanians now, like me. “With their
witch twins they have no need of the illusionist or the fire touch.” His eyes moved
to Zafrina, then Kate.
Stefan looked at Edward. “Nor is the mind reader is exactly necessary. But I see
your point. Indeed, they will gain much if they win.”
“More than we can afford to have them gain, wouldn’t you agree?”
Stefan sighed. “I think I must agree. And that means… ”
“That we must stand against them while there is still hope.”
“If we can just cripple them, even, expose them . . .”
“Then, someday, others will finish the job.”
“And our long vendetta will be repaid. At last.”
They locked eyes for a moment and then murmured in unison. “It seems the only
way.”
“So we fight,” Stefan said.
Though I could see that they were torn, self-preservation warring with revenge,
the smile they exchanged was full of anticipation.
“We fight,” Vladimir agreed.
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I suppose it was a good thing; like Alistair, I was sure the battle was impossible to
avoid. In that case, two more vampires fighting on our side could only help. But
the Romanians’ decision still made me shudder.
“We will fight, too,” Tia said, her usually grave voice more solemn than ever. “We
believe the Volturi will overstep their authority. We have no wish to belong to
them.” Her eyes lingered on her mate.
Benjamin grinned and threw an impish glance toward the Romanians.
“Apparently, I’m a hot commodity. It appears I have to win the right to be free.”
“This won’t be the first time I’ve fought to keep myself from a king’s rule,” Garrett
said in a teasing tone. He walked over and clapped Benjamin on the back. “Here’s
to freedom from oppression.”
“We stand with Carlisle,” Tanya said. “And we fight with him.”
The Romanians’ pronouncement seemed to have made the others feel the need to
declare themselves as well.
“We have not decided,” Peter said. He looked down at his tiny companion;
Charlotte’s lips were set in dissatisfaction. It looked like she’d made her decision.
I wondered what it was.
“The same goes for me,” Randall said.
“And me,” Mary added.
“The packs will fight with the Cullens,” Jacob said suddenly. “We’re not afraid of
vampires,” he added with a smirk.
“Children,” Peter muttered.
“Infants,” Randall corrected.
Jacob grinned tauntingly.
“Well, I’m in, too,” Maggie said, shrugging out from under Siobhan’s restraining
hand. “I know truth is on Carlisle’s side. I can’t ignore that.”
Siobhan stared at the junior member of her coven with worried eyes. “Carlisle,”
she said as if they were alone, ignoring the suddenly formal feel of the gathering,
the unexpected outburst of declarations, “I don’t want this to come to a fight.”
“Nor do I, Siobhan. You know that’s the last thing I want.” He half-smiled.
“Perhaps you should concentrate on keeping it peaceful.”
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“You know that won’t help,” she said.
I remembered Rose and Carlisle’s discussion of the Irish leader; Carlisle believed
that Siobhan had some subtle but powerful gift to make things go her way—and
yet Siobhan didn’t believe it herself.
“It couldn’t hurt,” Carlisle said.
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Shall I visualize the outcome I desire?” she asked
sarcastically.
Carlisle was openly grinning now. “If you don’t mind.”
“Then there is no need for my coven to declare itself, is there?” she retorted.
“Since there is no possibility of a fight.” She put her hand back on Maggie’s
shoulder, pulling the girl closer to her. Siobhan’s mate, Liam, stood silent and
expressionless.
Almost everyone else in the room looked mystified by Carlisle and Siobhan’s
clearly joking exchange, but they didn’t explain themselves.
That was the end of the dramatic speeches for the night. The group slowly
dispersed, some off to hunt, some to while away the time with Carlisle’s books or
televisions or computers.
Edward, Renesmee, and I went to hunt. Jacob tagged along.
“Stupid leeches,” he muttered to himself when we got outside. “Think they’re so
superior.” He snorted.
“They’ll be shocked when the infants save their superior lives, won’t they?”
Edward said.
Jake smiled and punched his shoulder. “Hell yeah, they will.”
This wasn’t our last hunting trip. We all would hunt again nearer to the time we
expected the Volturi. As the deadline was not exact, we were planning to stay a
few nights out in the big baseball clearing Alice had seen, just in case. All we
knew was that they would come the day that the snow stuck to the ground. We
didn’t want the Volturi too close to town, and Demetri would lead them to
wherever we were. I wondered who he would track in, and guessed that it would
be Edward since he couldn’t track me.
I thought about Demetri while I hunted, paying little attention to my prey or the
drifting snowflakes that had finally appeared but were melting before they
touched the rocky soil. Would Demetri realize that he couldn’t track me? What
would he make of that? What would Aro? Or was Edward wrong? There were
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those little exceptions to what I could withstand, those ways around my shield.
Everything that was outside my mind was vulnerable—open to the things Jasper,
Alice, and Benjamin could do. Maybe Demetri’s talent worked a little differently,
too.
And then I had a thought that brought me up short. The half-drained elk dropped
from my hands to the stony ground. Snowflakes vaporized a few inches from the
warm body with tiny sizzling sounds. I stared blankly at my bloody hands.
Edward saw my reaction and hurried to my side, leaving his own kill undrained.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a low voice, his eyes sweeping the forest around us,
looking for whatever had triggered my behavior.
“Renesmee,” I choked.
“She’s just through those trees,” he reassured me. “I can hear both her thoughts
and Jacob’s. She’s fine.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I was thinking about my shield—you really
think it’s worth something, that it will help somehow. I know the others are
hoping that I’ll be able to shield Zafrina and Benjamin, even if I can only keep it
up for a few seconds at a time. What if that’s a mistake? What if your trust in me
is the reason that we fail?”
My voice was edging toward hysteria, though I had enough control to keep it low.
I didn’t want to upset Renesmee.
“Bella, what brought this on? Of course, it’s wonderful that you can protect
yourself, but you’re not responsible for saving anyone. Don’t distress yourself
needlessly.”
“But what if I can’t protect anything?” I whispered in gasps. “This thing I do, it’s
faulty, it’s erratic! There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Maybe it will do nothing
against Alec at all.”
“Shh,” he hushed me. “Don’t panic. And don’t worry about Alec. What he does is
no different than what Jane or Zafrina does. It’s just an illusion—he can’t get
inside your head any more than I can.”
“But Renesmee does!” I hissed frantically through my teeth. “It seemed so
natural, I never questioned it before. It’s always been just part of who she is. But
she puts her thoughts right into my head just like she does with everyone else. My
shield has holes, Edward!”
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I stared at him desperately, waiting for him to acknowledge my terrible
revelation. His lips were pursed, as if he was trying to decide how to phrase
something. His expression was perfectly relaxed.
“You thought of this a long time ago, didn’t you?” I demanded, feeling like an
idiot for my months of overlooking the obvious.
He nodded, a faint smile pulling up one corner of his mouth. “The first time she
touched you.”
I sighed at my own stupidity, but his calm had mellowed me some. “And this
doesn’t bother you? You don’t see it as a problem?”
“I have two theories, one more likely than the other.”
“Give me the least likely first.”
“Well, she’s your daughter,” he pointed out. “Genetically half you. I used to tease
you about how your mind was on a different frequency than the rest of ours.
Perhaps she runs on the same.”
This didn’t work for me. “But you hear her mind just fine. Everyone hears her
mind. And what if Alec runs on a different frequency? What if—?”
He put a finger to my lips. “I’ve considered that. Which is why I think this next
theory is much more likely.”
I gritted my teeth and waited.
“Do you remember what Carlisle said to me about her, right after she showed you
that first memory?”
Of course I remembered. “He said, ‘It’s an interesting twist. Like she’s doing the
exact opposite of what you can.’”
“Yes. And so I wondered. Maybe she took your talent and flipped it, too.”
I considered that.
“You keep everyone out,” he began.
“And no one keeps her out?” I finished hesitantly.
“That’s my theory,” he said. “And if she can get into your head, I doubt there’s a
shield on the planet who could keep her at bay. That will help. From what we’ve
seen, no one can doubt the truth of her thoughts once they’ve allowed her to show
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them. And I think no one can keep her from showing them, if she gets close
enough. If Aro allows her to explain. . . .”
I shuddered to think of Renesmee so close to Aro’s greedy, milky eyes.
“Well,” he said, rubbing my tight shoulders. “At least there’s nothing that can
stop him from seeing the truth.”
“But is the truth enough to stop him?” I murmured.
For that, Edward had no answer.
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35. DEADLINE
“Headed out?” Edward asked, his tone nonchalant. There was a sort of forced
composure about his expression. He hugged Renesmee just a little bit tighter to
his chest.
“Yes, a few last-minute things…,” I responded just as casually.
He smiled my favorite smile. “Hurry back to me.”
“Always.”
I took his Volvo again, wondering if he’d read the odometer after my last errand.
How much had he pieced together? That I had a secret, absolutely. Would he
have deduced the reason why I didn’t confide in him? Did he guess that Aro
might soon know everything he knew? I thought Edward could have come to that
conclusion, which explained why he had demanded no reasons from me. I
guessed he was trying not to speculate too much, trying to keep my behavior off
his mind. Had he put this together with my odd performance the morning after
Alice left, burning my book in the fire? I didn’t know if he could have made that
leap.
It was a dreary afternoon, already dark as dusk. I sped through the gloom, my
eyes on the heavy clouds. Would it snow tonight? Enough to layer the ground and
create the scene from Alice’s vision? Edward estimated that we had about two
more days. Then we would set ourselves in the clearing, drawing the Volturi to
our chosen place.
As I headed through the darkening forest, I considered my last trip to Seattle. I
thought I knew Alice’s purpose in sending me to the dilapidated drop point where
J. Jenks referred his shadier clients. If I’d gone to one of his other, more
legitimate offices, would I have ever known what to ask for? If I’d met him as
Jason Jenks or Jason Scott, legitimate lawyer, would I ever have unearthed J.
Jenks, purveyor of illegal documents? I’d had to go the route that made it clear I
was up to no good. That was my clue.
It was black when I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant a few minutes
early, ignoring the eager valets by the entrance. I popped in my contacts and then
went to wait for J inside the restaurant. Though I was in a hurry to be done with
this depressing necessity and back with my family, J seemed careful to keep
himself untainted by his baser associations; I had a feeling a handoff in the dark
parking lot would offend his sensibilities.
I gave the name Jenks at the podium, and the obsequious maître d’ led me
upstairs to a small private room with a fire crackling in a stone hearth. He took
the calf-length ivory trench coat I’d worn to disguise the fact that I was wearing
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Alice’s idea of appropriate attire, and gasped quietly at my oyster satin cocktail
dress. I couldn’t help being a little flattered; I still wasn’t used to being beautiful
to everyone rather than just Edward. The maître d’ stuttered half-formed
compliments as he backed unsteadily from the room.
I stood by the fire to wait, holding my fingers close to the flame to warm them a
little before the inevitable handshake. Not that J wasn’t obviously aware that
there was something up with the Cullens, but it was still a good habit to practice.
For one half second, I wondered what it would feel like to put my hand in the fire.
What it would feel like when I burned. . . .
J’s entrance distracted my morbidity. The maître d’ took his coat, too, and it was
evident that I was not the only one who had dressed up for this meeting.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” J said as soon as we were alone.
“No, you’re exactly on time.”
He held out his hand, and as we shook I could feel that his fingers were still quite
noticeably warmer than mine. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“You look stunning, if I may be so bold, Mrs. Cullen.”
“Thank you, J. Please, call me Bella.”
“I must say, it’s a different experience working with you than it is with Mr.
Jasper. Much less… unsettling.” He smiled hesitantly.
“Really? I’ve always found Jasper to have a very soothing presence.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “Is that so?” he murmured politely while clearly
still in disagreement. How odd. What had Jasper done to this man?
“Have you known Jasper long?”
He sighed, looking uncomfortable. “I’ve been working with Mr. Jasper for more
than twenty years, and my old partner knew him for fifteen years before that.…
He never changes.” J cringed delicately.
“Yeah, Jasper’s kind of funny that way.”
J shook his head as if he could shake away the disturbing thoughts. “Won’t you
have a seat, Bella?”
“Actually, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’ve got a long drive home.” As I spoke, I took the
thick white envelope with his bonus from my bag and handed it to him.
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“Oh,” he said, a little catch of disappointment in his voice. He tucked the
envelope into an inside pocket of his jacket without bothering to check the
amount. “I was hoping we could speak for just a moment.”
“About?” I asked curiously.
“Well, let me get you your items first. I want to make sure you’re satisfied.”
He turned, placed his briefcase on the table, and popped the latches. He took out
a legal-sized manila envelope.
Though I had no idea what I should be looking for, I opened the envelope and
gave the contents a cursory glance. J had flipped Jacob’s picture and changed the
coloring so that it wasn’t immediately evident that it was the same picture on
both his passport and driver’s license. Both looked perfectly sound to me, but that
meant little. I glanced at the picture on Vanessa Wolfe’s passport for a fraction of
a second, and then looked away quickly, a lump rising in my throat.
“Thank you,” I told him.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and I felt he was disappointed that my examination
was not more thorough. “I can assure you every piece is perfect. All will pass the
most rigorous scrutiny by experts.”
“I’m sure they are. I truly appreciate what you’ve done for me, J.”
“It’s been my pleasure, Bella. In the future, feel free to come to me for anything
the Cullen family needs.” He didn’t even hint at it really, but this sounded like an
invitation for me to take over Jasper’s place as liaison.
“There was something you wanted to discuss?”
“Er, yes. It’s a bit delicate. . . .” He gestured to the stone hearth with a questioning
expression. I sat on the edge of the stone, and he sat beside me. Sweat was
dewing up on his forehead again, and he pulled a blue silk handkerchief from his
pocket and began mopping.
“You are the sister of Mr. Jasper’s wife? Or married to his brother?” he asked.
“Married to his brother,” I clarified, wondering where this was leading.
“You would be Mr. Edward’s bride, then?”
“Yes.”
488
He smiled apologetically. “I’ve seen all the names many times, you see. My
belated congratulations. It’s nice that Mr. Edward has found such a lovely partner
after all this time.”
“Thank you very much.”
He paused, dabbing at the sweat. “Over the years, you might imagine that I’ve
developed a very healthy level of respect for Mr. Jasper and the entire family.”
I nodded cautiously.
He took a deep breath and then exhaled without speaking.
“J, please just say whatever you need to.”
He took another breath and then mumbled quickly, slurring the words together.
“If you could just assure me that you are not planning to kidnap the little girl
from her father, I would sleep better tonight.”
“Oh,” I said, stunned. It took me a minute to understand the erroneous
conclusion he’d drawn. “Oh no. It’s nothing like that at all.” I smiled weakly,
trying to reassure him. “I’m simply preparing a safe place for her in case
something were to happen to my husband and me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you expecting something to happen?” He blushed, then
apologized. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
I watched the red flush spread behind the delicate membrane of his skin and was
glad—as I often was—that I was not the average newborn. J seemed a nice
enough man, criminal behavior aside, and it would have been a shame to kill him.
“You never know.” I sighed.
He frowned. “May I wish you the best of luck, then. And please don’t be put out
with me, my dear, but… if Mr. Jasper should come to me and ask what names I
put on these documents . . .”
“Of course you should tell him immediately. I’d like nothing better than to have
Mr. Jasper fully aware of our entire transaction.”
My transparent sincerity seemed to ease a bit of his tension.
“Very good,” he said. “And I can’t prevail upon you to stay for dinner?”
“I’m sorry, J. I’m short on time at present.”
489
“Then, again, my best wishes for your health and happiness. Anything at all the
Cullen family needs, please don’t hesitate to call on me, Bella.”
“Thank you, J.”
I left with my contraband, glancing back to see that J was staring after me, his
expression a mixture of anxiety and regret.
The return trip took me less time. The night was black, and so I turned off my
headlights and floored it. When I got back to the house, most of the cars,
including Alice’s Porsche and my Ferrari, were missing. The traditional vampires
were going as far away as possible to satiate their thirst. I tried not to think of
their hunting in the night, cringing at the mental picture of their victims.
Only Kate and Garrett were in the front room, arguing playfully about the
nutritional value of animal blood. I inferred that Garrett had attempted a hunting
trip vegetarian-style and found it difficult.
Edward must have taken Renesmee home to sleep. Jacob, no doubt, was in the
woods close by the cottage. The rest of my family must have been hunting as well.
Perhaps they were out with the other Denalis.
Which basically gave me the house to myself, and I was quick to take advantage.
I could smell that I was the first one to enter Alice and Jasper’s room in a long
while, maybe the first since the night they’d left us. I rooted silently through their
huge closet until I found the right sort of bag. It must have been Alice’s; it was a
small black leather backpack, the kind that was usually used as a purse, little
enough that even Renesmee could carry it without looking out of place. Then I
raided their petty cash, taking about twice the yearly income for the average
American household. I guessed my theft would be less noticeable here than
anywhere else in the house, since this room made everyone sad. The envelope
with the fake passports and IDs went into the bag on top of the money. Then I sat
on the edge of Alice and Jasper’s bed and looked at the pitifully insignificant
package that was all I could give my daughter and my best friend to help save
their lives. I slumped against the bedpost, feeling helpless.
But what else could I do?
I sat there for several minutes with my head bowed before the inkling of a good
idea came to me.
If…
If I was to assume that Jacob and Renesmee were going to escape, then that
included the assumption that Demetri would be dead. That gave any survivors a
little breathing room, Alice and Jasper included.
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So why couldn’t Alice and Jasper help Jacob and Renesmee? If they were
reunited, Renesmee would have the best protection imaginable. There was no
reason why this couldn’t happen, except for the fact that Jake and Renesmee both
were blind spots for Alice. How would she begin to look for them?
I deliberated for a moment, then left the room, crossing the hall to Carlisle and
Esme’s suite. As usual, Esme’s desk was stacked with plans and blueprints,
everything neatly laid out in tall piles. The desk had a slew of pigeonholes above
the work surface; in one was a box of stationery. I took a fresh sheet of paper and
a pen.
Then I stared at the blank ivory page for a full five minutes, concentrating on my
decision. Alice might not be able to see Jacob or Renesmee, but she could see me.
I visualized her seeing this moment, hoping desperately that she wasn’t too busy
to pay attention.
Slowly, deliberately, I wrote the words RIO DE JANEIRO in all caps across the
page.
Rio seemed the best place to send them: It was far away from here, Alice and
Jasper were already in South America at last report, and it wasn’t like our old
problems had ceased to exist just because we had worse problems now. There
was still the mystery of Renesmee’s future, the terror of her racing age. We’d been
headed south anyway. Now it would be Jacob’s, and hopefully Alice’s, job to
search for the legends.
I bowed my head again against a sudden urge to sob, clenching my teeth together.
It was better that Renesmee go on without me. But I already missed her so much
I could barely stand it.
I took a deep breath and put the note at the bottom of the duffel bag, where Jacob
would find it soon enough.
I crossed my fingers that—since it was unlikely that his high school offered
Portuguese—Jake had at least taken Spanish as his language elective.
There was nothing left now but waiting.
For two days, Edward and Carlisle stayed in the clearing where Alice had seen the
Volturi arrive. It was the same killing field where Victoria’s newborns had
attacked last summer. I wondered if it felt repetitive to Carlisle, like déjà vu. For
me, it would be all new. This time Edward and I would stand with our family.
We could only imagine that the Volturi would be tracking either Edward or
Carlisle. I wondered if it would surprise them that their prey didn’t run. Would
that make them wary? I couldn’t imagine the Volturi ever feeling a need for
caution.
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Though I was—hopefully—invisible to Demetri, I stayed with Edward. Of course.
We only had a few hours left to be together.
Edward and I had not had a last grand scene of farewell, nor did I plan one. To
speak the word was to make it final. It would be the same as typing the words The
End on the last page of a manuscript. So we did not say our goodbyes, and we
stayed very close to each other, always touching. Whatever end found us, it would
not find us separated.
We set up a tent for Renesmee a few yards back into the protective forest, and
then there was more déjà vu as we found ourselves camping in the cold again
with Jacob. It was almost impossible to believe how much things had changed
since last June. Seven months ago, our triangular relationship seemed
impossible, three different kinds of heartbreak that could not be avoided. Now
everything was in perfect balance. It seemed hideously ironic that the puzzle
pieces would fit together just in time for all of them to be destroyed.
It started to snow again the night before New Year’s Eve. This time, the tiny
flakes did not dissolve into the stony ground of the clearing. While Renesmee and
Jacob slept—Jacob snoring so loudly I wondered how Renesmee didn’t wake—the
snow made first a thin icing over the earth, then built into thicker drifts. By the
time the sun rose, the scene from Alice’s vision was complete. Edward and I held
hands as we stared across the glittering white field, and neither of us spoke.
Through the early morning, the others gathered, their eyes bearing mute evidence
of their preparations—some light gold, some rich crimson. Soon after we all were
together, we could hear the wolves moving in the woods. Jacob emerged from the
tent, leaving Renesmee still sleeping, to join them.
Edward and Carlisle were arraying the others into a loose formation, our
witnesses to the sides like galleries.
I watched from a distance, waiting by the tent for Renesmee to wake. When she
did, I helped her dress in the clothes I’d carefully picked out two days before.
Clothes that looked frilly and feminine but that were actually sturdy enough to
not show any wear—even if a person wore them while riding a giant werewolf
through a couple of states. Over her jacket I put on the black leather backpack
with the documents, the money, the clue, and my love notes for her and Jacob,
Charlie and Renée. She was strong enough that it was no burden to her.
Her eyes were huge as she read the agony on my face. But she had guessed
enough not to ask me what I was doing.
“I love you,” I told her. “More than anything.”
“I love you, too, Momma,” she answered. She touched the locket at her neck,
which now held a tiny photo of her, Edward, and me. “We’ll always be together.”
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“In our hearts we’ll always be together,” I corrected in a whisper as quiet as a
breath. “But when the time comes today, you have to leave me.”
Her eyes widened, and she touched her hand to my cheek. The silent no was
louder than if she’d shouted it.
I fought to swallow; my throat felt swollen. “Will you do it for me? Please?”
She pressed her fingers harder to my face. Why?
“I can’t tell you,” I whispered. “But you’ll understand soon. I promise.”
In my head, I saw Jacob’s face.
I nodded, then pulled her fingers away. “Don’t think of it,” I breathed into her
ear. “Don’t tell Jacob until I tell you to run, okay?”
This she understood. She nodded, too.
I took from my pocket one last detail.
While packing Renesmee’s things, an unexpected sparkle of color had caught my
eye. A chance ray of sun through the skylight had hit the jewels on the ancient
precious box stuffed high overhead on a shelf in an untouched corner. I
considered it for a moment and then shrugged. After putting together Alice’s
clues, I couldn’t hope that the coming confrontation would be resolved
peacefully. But why not try to start things out as friendly as possible? I asked
myself. What could it hurt? So I guess I must have had some hope left after all—
blind, senseless hope—because I’d scaled the shelves and retrieved Aro’s wedding
present to me.
Now I fastened the thick gold rope around my neck and felt the weight of the
enormous diamond nestle into the hollow of my throat.
“Pretty,” Renesmee whispered. Then she wrapped her arms like a vise around my
neck. I squeezed her against my chest. Interlocked this way, I carried her out of
the tent and to the clearing.
Edward cocked one eyebrow as I approached, but otherwise did not remark on
my accessory or Renesmee’s. He just put his arms tight around us both for one
long moment and then, with a deep sigh, let us go. I couldn’t see a goodbye
anywhere in his eyes. Maybe he had more hope for something after this life than
he’d let on.
We took our place, Renesmee climbing agilely onto my back to leave my hands
free. I stood a few feet behind the front line made up by Carlisle, Edward,
Emmett, Rosalie, Tanya, Kate, and Eleazar. Close beside me were Benjamin and
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Zafrina; it was my job to protect them as long as I was able. They were our best
offensive weapons. If the Volturi were the ones who could not see, even for a few
moments, that would change everything.
Zafrina was rigid and fierce, with Senna almost a mirror image at her side.
Benjamin sat on the ground, his palms pressed to the dirt, and muttered quietly
about fault lines. Last night, he’d strewn piles of boulders in natural-looking, now
snow-covered heaps all along the back of the meadow. They weren’t enough to
injure a vampire, but hopefully enough to distract one.
The witnesses clustered to our left and right, some nearer than others—those who
had declared themselves were the closest. I noticed Siobhan rubbing her temples,
her eyes closed in concentration; was she humoring Carlisle? Trying to visualize a
diplomatic resolution?
In the woods behind us, the invisible wolves were still and ready; we could only
hear their heavy panting, their beating hearts.
The clouds rolled in, diffusing the light so that it could have been morning or
afternoon. Edward’s eyes tightened as he scrutinized the view, and I was sure he
was seeing this exact scene for the second time—the first time being Alice’s
vision. It would look just the same when the Volturi arrived. We only had minutes
or seconds left now.
All our family and allies braced themselves.
From the forest, the huge russet Alpha wolf came forward to stand at my side; it
must have been too hard for him to keep his distance from Renesmee when she
was in such immediate danger.
Renesmee reached out to twine her fingers in the fur over his massive shoulder,
and her body relaxed a little bit. She was calmer with Jacob close. I felt a tiny bit
better, too. As long Jacob was with Renesmee, she would be all right.
Without risking a glance behind, Edward reached back to me. I stretched my arm
forward so that I could grip his hand. He squeezed my fingers.
Another minute ticked by, and I found myself straining to hear some sound of
approach.
And then Edward stiffened and hissed low between his clenched teeth. His eyes
focused on the forest due north of where we stood.
We stared where he did, and waited as the last seconds passed.
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36. BLOODLUST
They came with pageantry, with a kind of beauty.
They came in a rigid, formal formation. They moved together, but it was not a
march; they flowed in perfect synchronicity from the trees—a dark, unbroken
shape that seemed to hover a few inches above the white snow, so smooth was the
advance.
The outer perimeter was gray; the color darkened with each line of bodies until
the heart of the formation was deepest black. Every face was cowled, shadowed.
The faint brushing sound of their feet was so regular it was like music, a
complicated beat that never faltered.
At some sign I did not see—or perhaps there was no sign, only millennia of
practice—the configuration folded outward. The motion was too stiff, too square
to resemble the opening of a flower, though the color suggested that; it was the
opening of a fan, graceful but very angular. The gray-cloaked figures spread to the
flanks while the darker forms surged precisely forward in the center, each
movement closely controlled.
Their progress was slow but deliberate, with no hurry, no tension, no anxiety. It
was the pace of the invincible.
This was almost my old nightmare. The only thing lacking was the gloating desire
I’d seen on the faces in my dream—the smiles of vindictive joy. Thus far, the
Volturi were too disciplined to show any emotion at all. They also showed no
surprise or dismay at the collection of vampires that waited for them here—a
collection that looked suddenly disorganized and unprepared in comparison.
They showed no surprise at the giant wolf that stood in our midst.
I couldn’t help counting. There were thirty-two of them. Even if you did not count
the two drifting, waifish black-cloaked figures in the very back, who I took to be
the wives—their protected position suggesting that they would not be involved in
the attack—we were still outnumbered. There were just nineteen of us who would
fight, and then seven more to watch as we were destroyed. Even counting the ten
wolves, they had us.
“The redcoats are coming, the redcoats are coming,” Garrett muttered
mysteriously to himself and then chuckled once. He slid one step closer to Kate.
“They did come,” Vladimir whispered to Stefan.
“The wives,” Stefan hissed back. “The entire guard. All of them together. It’s well
we didn’t try Volterra.”
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And then, as if their numbers were not enough, while the Volturi slowly and
majestically advanced, more vampires began entering the clearing behind them.
The faces in this seemingly endless influx of vampires were the antithesis to the
Volturi’s expressionless discipline—they wore a kaleidoscope of emotions. At first
there was the shock and even some anxiety as they saw the unexpected force
awaiting them. But that concern passed quickly; they were secure in their
overwhelming numbers, secure in their position behind the unstoppable Volturi
force. Their features returned to the expression they’d worn before we’d surprised
them.
It was easy enough to understand their mindset—the faces were that explicit. This
was an angry mob, whipped to a frenzy and slavering for justice. I did not fully
realize the vampire world’s feeling toward the immortal children before I read
these faces.
It was clear that this motley, disorganized horde—more than forty vampires
altogether—was the Volturi’s own kind of witness. When we were dead, they
would spread the word that the criminals had been eradicated, that the Volturi
had acted with nothing but impartiality. Most looked like they hoped for more
than just an opportunity to witness—they wanted to help tear and burn.
We didn’t have a prayer. Even if we could somehow neutralize the Volturi’s
advantages, they could still bury us in bodies. Even if we killed Demetri, Jacob
would not be able to outrun this.
I could feel it as the same comprehension sunk in around me. Despair weighted
the air, pushing me down with more pressure than before.
One vampire in the opposing force did not seem to belong to either party; I
recognized Irina as she hesitated in between the two companies, her expression
unique among the others. Irina’s horrified gaze was locked on Tanya’s position in
the front line. Edward snarled, a very low but fervent sound.
“Alistair was right,” he murmured to Carlisle.
I watched Carlisle glance at Edward questioningly.
“Alistair was right?” Tanya whispered.
“They—Caius and Aro—come to destroy and acquire,” Edward breathed almost
silently back; only our side could hear. “They have many layers of strategy already
in place. If Irina’s accusation had somehow proven to be false, they were
committed to find another reason to take offense. But they can see Renesmee
now, so they are perfectly sanguine about their course. We could still attempt to
defend against their other contrived charges, but first they have to stop, to hear
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the truth about Renesmee.” Then, even lower. “Which they have no intention of
doing.”
Jacob gave a strange little huff.
And then, unexpectedly, two seconds later, the procession did halt. The low
music of perfectly synchronized movements turned to silence. The flawless
discipline remained unbroken; the Volturi froze into absolute stillness as one.
They stood about a hundred yards away from us.
Behind me, to the sides, I heard the beating of large hearts, closer than before. I
risked glances to the left and the right from the corners of my eyes to see what
had stopped the Volturi advance.
The wolves had joined us.
On either side of our uneven line, the wolves branched out in long, bordering
arms. I only spared a fraction of a second to note that there were more than ten
wolves, to recognize the wolves I knew and the ones I’d never seen before. There
were sixteen of them spaced evenly around us—seventeen total, counting Jacob.
It was clear from their heights and oversized paws that the newcomers all were
very, very young. I supposed I should have foreseen this. With so many vampires
encamped in the neighborhood, a werewolf population explosion was inevitable.
More children dying. I wondered why Sam had allowed this, and then I realized
he had no other choice. If any of the wolves stood with us, the Volturi would be
sure to search out the rest. They had gambled their entire species on this stand.
And we were going to lose.
Abruptly, I was furious. Beyond furious, I was murderously enraged. My hopeless
despair vanished entirely. A faint reddish glow highlighted the dark figures in
front of me, and all I wanted in that moment was the chance to sink my teeth into
them, to rip their limbs from their bodies and pile them for burning. I was so
maddened I could have danced around the pyre where they roasted alive; I would
have laughed while their ashes smoldered. My lips curved back automatically,
and a low, fierce snarl tore up my throat from the pit of my stomach. I realized
the corners of my mouth were turned up in a smile.
Beside me, Zafrina and Senna echoed my hushed growl. Edward squeezed the
hand he still held, cautioning me.
The shadowed Volturi faces were still expressionless for the most part. Only two
sets of eyes betrayed any emotion at all. In the very center, touching hands, Aro
and Caius had paused to evaluate, and the entire guard had paused with them,
waiting for the order to kill. The two did not look at each other, but it was obvious
that they were communicating. Marcus, though touching Aro’s other hand, did
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not seem part of the conversation. His expression was not as mindless as the
guards’, but it was nearly as blank. Like the one other time I’d seen him, he
appeared to be utterly bored.
The bodies of the Volturi’s witnesses leaned toward us, their eyes fixed furiously
on Renesmee and me, but they stayed near the fringe of the forest, leaving a wide
berth between themselves and the Volturi soldiers. Only Irina hovered close
behind the Volturi, just a few paces away from the ancient females—both fairhaired
with powdery skin and filmed eyes—and their two massive bodyguards.
There was a woman in one of the darker gray cloaks just behind Aro. I couldn’t be
sure, but it looked like she might actually be touching his back. Was this the other
shield, Renata? I wondered, as Eleazar had, if she would be able to repel me.
But I would not waste my life trying to get to Caius or Aro. I had more vital
targets.
I searched the line for them now and had no difficulty picking out the two petite,
deep gray cloaks near the heart of the arrangement. Alec and Jane, easily the
smallest members of the guard, stood just to Marcus’s side, flanked by Demetri
on the other. Their lovely faces were smooth, giving nothing away; they wore the
darkest cloaks beside the pure black of the ancients. The witch twins, Vladimir
had called them. Their powers were the cornerstone of the Volturi offensive. The
jewels in Aro’s collection.
My muscles flexed, and venom welled in my mouth.
Aro’s and Caius’s clouded red eyes flickered across our line. I read
disappointment in Aro’s face as his gaze roved over our faces again and again,
looking for one that was missing. Chagrin tightened his lips.
In that moment, I was nothing but grateful that Alice had run.
As the pause lengthened, I heard Edward’s breath speed.
“Edward?” Carlisle asked, low and anxious.
“They’re not sure how to proceed. They’re weighing options, choosing key
targets—me, of course, you, Eleazar, Tanya. Marcus is reading the strength of our
ties to each other, looking for weak points. The Romanians’ presence irritates
them. They’re worried about the faces they don’t recognize—Zafrina and Senna in
particular—and the wolves, naturally. They’ve never been outnumbered before.
That’s what stopped them.”
“Outnumbered?” Tanya whispered incredulously.
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“They don’t count their witnesses,” Edward breathed. “They are nonentities,
meaningless to the guard. Aro just enjoys an audience.”
“Should I speak?” Carlisle asked.
Edward hesitated, then nodded. “This is the only chance you’ll get.”
Carlisle squared his shoulders and paced several steps ahead of our defensive
line. I hated to see him alone, unprotected.
He spread his arms, holding his palms up as if in greeting. “Aro, my old friend.
It’s been centuries.”
The white clearing was dead silent for a long moment. I could feel the tension
rolling off Edward as he listened to Aro’s assessment of Carlisle’s words. The
strain mounted as the seconds ticked by.
And then Aro stepped forward out of the center of the Volturi formation. The
shield, Renata, moved with him as if the tips of her fingers were sewn to his robe.
For the first time, the Volturi ranks reacted. A muttered grumble rolled through
the line, eyebrows lowered into scowls, lips curled back from teeth. A few of the
guard leaned forward into a crouch.
Aro held one hand up toward them. “Peace.”
He walked just a few paces more, then cocked his head to one side. His milky eyes
glinted with curiosity.
“Fair words, Carlisle,” he breathed in his thin, wispy voice. “They seem out of
place, considering the army you’ve assembled to kill me, and to kill my dear
ones.”
Carlisle shook his head and stretched his right hand forward as if there were not
still almost a hundred yards between them. “You have but to touch my hand to
know that was never my intent.”
Aro’s shrewd eyes narrowed. “But how can your intent possibly matter, dear
Carlisle, in the face of what you have done?” He frowned, and a shadow of
sadness crossed his features—whether it was genuine or not, I could not tell.
“I have not committed the crime you are here to punish me for.”
“Then step aside and let us punish those responsible. Truly, Carlisle, nothing
would please me more than to preserve your life today.”
“No one has broken the law, Aro. Let me explain.” Again, Carlisle offered his
hand.
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Before Aro could answer, Caius drifted swiftly forward to Aro’s side.
“So many pointless rules, so many unnecessary laws you create for yourself,
Carlisle,” the white-haired ancient hissed. “How is it possible that you defend the
breaking of one that truly matters?”
“The law is not broken. If you would listen—”
“We see the child, Carlisle,” Caius snarled. “Do not treat us as fools.”
“She is not an immortal. She is not a vampire. I can easily prove this with just a
few moments—”
Caius cut him off. “If she is not one of the forbidden, then why have you massed a
battalion to protect her?”
“Witnesses, Caius, just as you have brought.” Carlisle gestured to the angry horde
at the edge of the woods; some of them growled in response. “Any one of these
friends can tell you the truth about the child. Or you could just look at her, Caius.
See the flush of human blood in her cheeks.”
“Artifice!” Caius snapped. “Where is the informer? Let her come forward!” He
craned his neck around until he spotted Irina lingering behind the wives. “You!
Come!”
Irina stared at him uncomprehendingly, her face like that of someone who has
not entirely awakened from a hideous nightmare. Impatiently, Caius snapped his
fingers. One of the wives’ huge bodyguards moved to Irina’s side and prodded her
roughly in the back. Irina blinked twice and then walked slowly toward Caius in a
daze. She stopped several yards short, her eyes still on her sisters.
Caius closed the distance between them and slapped her across the face.
It couldn’t have hurt, but there was something terribly degrading about the
action. It was like watching someone kick a dog. Tanya and Kate hissed in
synchronization.
Irina’s body went rigid and her eyes finally focused on Caius. He pointed one
clawed finger at Renesmee, where she clung to my back, her fingers still tangled
in Jacob’s fur. Caius turned entirely red in my furious view. A growl rumbled
through Jacob’s chest.
“This is the child you saw?” Caius demanded. “The one that was obviously more
than human?”
Irina peered at us, examining Renesmee for the first time since entering the
clearing. Her head tilted to the side, confusion crossed her features.
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“Well?” Caius snarled.
“I… I’m not sure,” she said, her tone perplexed.
Caius’s hand twitched as if he wanted to slap her again. “What do you mean?” he
said in a steely whisper.
“She’s not the same, but I think it’s the same child. What I mean is, she’s
changed. This child is bigger than the one I saw, but—”
Caius’s furious gasp crackled through his suddenly bared teeth, and Irina broke
off without finishing. Aro flitted to Caius’s side and put a restraining hand on his
shoulder.
“Be composed, brother. We have time to sort this out. No need to be hasty.”
With a sullen expression, Caius turned his back on Irina.
“Now, sweetling,” Aro said in a warm, sugary murmur. “Show me what you’re
trying to say.” He held his hand out to the bewildered vampire.
Uncertainly, Irina took his hand. He held hers for only five seconds.
“You see, Caius?” he said. “It’s a simple matter to get what we need.”
Caius didn’t answer him. From the corner of his eye, Aro glanced once at his
audience, his mob, and then turned back to Carlisle.
“And so we have a mystery on our hands, it seems. It would appear the child has
grown. Yet Irina’s first memory was clearly that of an immortal child. Curious.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to explain,” Carlisle said, and from the change in
his voice, I could guess at his relief. This was the pause we had pinned all our
nebulous hopes on.
I felt no relief. I waited, almost numb with rage, for the layers of strategy Edward
had promised.
Carlisle held out his hand again.
Aro hesitated for a moment. “I would rather have the explanation from someone
more central to the story, my friend. Am I wrong to assume that this breach was
not of your making?”
“There was no breach.”
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“Be that as it may, I will have every facet of the truth.” Aro’s feathery voice
hardened. “And the best way to get that is to have the evidence directly from your
talented son.” He inclined his head in Edward’s direction. “As the child clings to
his newborn mate, I’m assuming Edward is involved.”
Of course he wanted Edward. Once he could see into Edward’s mind, he would
know all our thoughts. Except mine.
Edward turned to quickly kiss my forehead and Renesmee’s, not meeting my
eyes. Then he strode across the snowy field, clapping Carlisle on the shoulder as
he passed. I heard a low whimper from behind me—Esme’s terror breaking
through.
The red haze I saw around the Volturi army flamed brighter than before. I could
not bear to watch Edward cross the empty white space alone—but I also could not
endure to have Renesmee one step closer to our adversaries. The opposing needs
tore at me; I was frozen so tightly it felt like my bones might shatter from the
pressure of it.
I saw Jane smile as Edward crossed the midpoint in the distance between us,
when he was closer to them than he was to us.
That smug little smile did it. My fury peaked, higher even than the raging
bloodlust I’d felt the moment the wolves had committed to this doomed fight. I
could taste madness on my tongue—I felt it flow through me like a tidal wave of
pure power. My muscles tightened, and I acted automatically. I threw my shield
with all the force in my mind, flung it across the impossible expanse of the field—
ten times my best distance—like a javelin. My breath rushed out in a huff with the
exertion.
The shield blew out from me in a bubble of sheer energy, a mushroom cloud of
liquid steel. It pulsed like a living thing—I could feel it, from the apex to the
edges.
There was no recoil to the elastic fabric now; in that instant of raw force, I saw
that the backlash I’d felt before was of my own making—I had been clinging to
that invisible part of me in self-defense, subconsciously unwilling to let it go. Now
I set it free, and my shield exploded a good fifty yards out from me effortlessly,
taking only a fraction of my concentration. I could feel it flex like just another
muscle, obedient to my will. I pushed it, shaped it to a long, pointed oval.
Everything underneath the flexible iron shield was suddenly a part of me—I could
feel the life force of everything it covered like points of bright heat, dazzling
sparks of light surrounding me. I thrust the shield forward the length of the
clearing, and exhaled in relief when I felt Edward’s brilliant light within my
protection. I held there, contracting this new muscle so that it closely surrounded
Edward, a thin but unbreakable sheet between his body and our enemies.
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Barely a second had passed. Edward was still walking to Aro. Everything had
changed absolutely, but no one had noticed the explosion except for me. A
startled laugh burst through my lips. I felt the others glancing at me and saw
Jacob’s big black eye roll down to stare at me like I’d lost my mind.
Edward stopped a few steps away from Aro, and I realized with some chagrin that
though I certainly could, I should not prevent this exchange from happening. This
was the point of all our preparations: getting Aro to hear our side of the story. It
was almost physically painful to do it, but reluctantly I pulled my shield back and
left Edward exposed again. The laughing mood had vanished. I focused totally on
Edward, ready to shield him instantly if something went wrong.
Edward’s chin came up arrogantly, and he held his hand out to Aro as if he were
conferring a great honor. Aro seemed only delighted with his attitude, but his
delight was not universal. Renata fluttered nervously in Aro’s shadow. Caius’s
scowl was so deep it looked like his papery, translucent skin would crease
permanently. Little Jane showed her teeth, and beside her Alec’s eyes narrowed
in concentration. I guessed that he was ready, like me, to act at a second’s notice.
Aro closed the distance without pause—and really, what did he have to fear? The
hulking shadows of the lighter gray cloaks—the brawny fighters like Felix—were
but a few yards away. Jane and her burning gift could throw Edward on the
ground, writhing in agony. Alec could blind and deafen him before he could take
a step in Aro’s direction. No one knew that I had the power to stop them, not even
Edward.
With an untroubled smile, Aro took Edward’s hand. His eyes snapped shut at
once, and then his shoulders hunched under the onslaught of information.
Every secret thought, every strategy, every insight—everything Edward had heard
in the minds around him during the last month—was now Aro’s. And further
back—every vision of Alice’s, every quiet moment with our family, every picture
in Renesmee’s head, every kiss, every touch between Edward and me… All of that
was Aro’s now, too.
I hissed with frustration, and the shield roiled with my irritation, shifting its
shape and contracting around our side.
“Easy, Bella,” Zafrina whispered to me.
I clenched my teeth together.
Aro continued to concentrate on Edward’s memories. Edward’s head bowed, too,
the muscles in his neck locking tight as he read back again everything that Aro
took from him, and Aro’s response to it all.
503
This two-way but unequal conversation continued long enough that even the
guard grew uneasy. Low murmurs ran through the line until Caius barked a sharp
order for silence. Jane was edging forward like she couldn’t help herself, and
Renata’s face was rigid with distress. For a moment, I examined this powerful
shield that seemed so panicky and weak; though she was useful to Aro, I could
tell she was no warrior. It was not her job to fight but to protect. There was no
bloodlust in her. Raw as I was, I knew that if this were between her and me, I
would obliterate her.
I refocused as Aro straightened, his eyes flashing open, their expression awed and
wary. He did not release Edward’s hand.
Edward’s muscles loosened ever so slightly.
“You see?” Edward asked, his velvet voice calm.
“Yes, I see, indeed,” Aro agreed, and amazingly, he sounded almost amused. “I
doubt whether any two among gods or mortals have ever seen quite so clearly.”
The disciplined faces of the guard showed the same disbelief I felt.
“You have given me much to ponder, young friend,” Aro continued. “Much more
than I expected.” Still he did not release Edward’s hand, and Edward’s tense
stance was that of one who listens.
Edward didn’t answer.
“May I meet her?” Aro asked—almost pleaded—with sudden eager interest. “I
never dreamed of the existence of such a thing in all my centuries. What an
addition to our histories!”
“What is this about, Aro?” Caius snapped before Edward could answer. Just the
question had me pulling Renesmee around into my arms, cradling her
protectively against my chest.
“Something you’ve never dreamed of, my practical friend. Take a moment to
ponder, for the justice we intended to deliver no longer applies.”
Caius hissed in surprise at his words.
“Peace, brother,” Aro cautioned soothingly.
This should have been good news—these were the words we’d been hoping for,
the reprieve we’d never really thought possible. Aro had listened to the truth. Aro
had admitted that the law had not been broken.
504
But my eyes were riveted on Edward, and I saw the muscles in his back tighten. I
replayed in my head Aro’s instruction for Caius to ponder, and heard the double
meaning.
“Will you introduce me to your daughter?” Aro asked Edward again.
Caius was not the only one who hissed at this new revelation.
Edward nodded reluctantly. And yet, Renesmee had won over so many others.
Aro always seemed the leader of the ancients. If he were on her side, could the
others act against us?
Aro still gripped Edward’s hand, and he now answered a question that the rest of
us had not heard.
“I think a compromise on this one point is certainly acceptable, under the
circumstance. We will meet in the middle.”
Aro released his hand. Edward turned back toward us, and Aro joined him,
throwing one arm casually over Edward’s shoulder like they were the best of
friends—all the while maintaining contact with Edward’s skin. They began to
cross the field back to our side.
The entire guard fell into step behind them. Aro raised a hand negligently without
looking at them.
“Hold, my dear ones. Truly, they mean us no harm if we are peaceable.”
The guard reacted to this more openly than before, with snarls and hisses of
protest, but held their position. Renata, clinging closer to Aro than ever,
whimpered in anxiety.
“Master,” she whispered.
“Don’t fret, my love,” he responded. “All is well.”
“Perhaps you should bring a few members of your guard with us,” Edward
suggested. “It will make them more comfortable.”
Aro nodded as if this was a wise observation he should have thought of himself.
He snapped his fingers twice. “Felix, Demetri.”
The two vampires were at his side instantaneously, looking precisely the same as
the last time I’d met them. Both were tall and dark-haired, Demetri hard and lean
as the blade of a sword, Felix hulking and menacing as an iron-spiked cudgel.
The five of them stopped in the middle of the snowy field.
505
“Bella,” Edward called. “Bring Renesmee… and a few friends.”
I took a deep breath. My body was tight with opposition. The idea of taking
Renesmee into the center of the conflict… But I trusted Edward. He would know
if Aro was planning any treachery at this point.
Aro had three protectors on his side of the summit, so I would bring two with me.
It took me only a second to decide.
“Jacob? Emmett?” I asked quietly. Emmett, because he would be dying to go.
Jacob, because he wouldn’t be able to bear being left behind.
Both nodded. Emmett grinned.
I crossed the field with them flanking me. I heard another rumble from the guard
as they saw my choices—clearly, they did not trust the werewolf. Aro lifted his
hand, waving away their protest again.
“Interesting company you keep,” Demetri murmured to Edward.
Edward didn’t respond, but a low growl slipped through Jacob’s teeth.
We stopped a few yards from Aro. Edward ducked under Aro’s arm and quickly
joined us, taking my hand.
For a moment we faced each other in silence. Then Felix greeted me in a low
aside.
“Hello again, Bella.” He grinned cockily while still tracking Jacob’s every twitch
with his peripheral vision.
I smiled wryly at the mountainous vampire. “Hey, Felix.”
Felix chuckled. “You look good. Immortality suits you.”
“Thanks so much.”
“You’re welcome. It’s too bad . . .”
He let his comment trail off into silence, but I didn’t need Edward’s gift to
imagine the end. It’s too bad we’re going to kill you in a sec.
“Yes, too bad, isn’t it?” I murmured.
Felix winked.
506
Aro paid no attention to our exchange. He leaned his head to one side, fascinated.
“I hear her strange heart,” he murmured with an almost musical lilt to his words.
“I smell her strange scent.” Then his hazy eyes shifted to me. “In truth, young
Bella, immortality does become you most extraordinarily,” he said. “It is as if you
were designed for this life.”
I nodded once in acknowledgment of his flattery.
“You liked my gift?” he asked, eyeing the pendant I wore.
“It’s beautiful, and very, very generous of you. Thank you. I probably should have
sent a note.”
Aro laughed delightedly. “It’s just a little something I had lying around. I thought
it might complement your new face, and so it does.”
I heard a little hiss from the center of the Volturi line. I glanced over Aro’s
shoulder.
Hmm. It seemed Jane wasn’t happy about the fact that Aro had given me a
present.
Aro cleared his throat to reclaim my attention. “May I greet your daughter, lovely
Bella?” he asked sweetly.
This was what we’d hoped for, I reminded myself. Fighting the urge to take
Renesmee and run for it, I walked two slow steps forward. My shield rippled out
behind me like a cape, protecting the rest of my family while Renesmee was left
exposed. It felt wrong, horrible.
Aro met us, his face beaming.
“But she’s exquisite,” he murmured. “So like you and Edward.” And then louder,
“Hello, Renesmee.”
Renesmee looked at me quickly. I nodded.
“Hello, Aro,” she answered formally in her high, ringing voice.
Aro’s eyes were bemused.
“What is it?” Caius hissed from behind. He seemed infuriated by the need to ask.
“Half mortal, half immortal,” Aro announced to him and the rest of the guard
without turning his enthralled gaze from Renesmee. “Conceived so, and carried
by this newborn while she was still human.”
507
“Impossible,” Caius scoffed.
“Do you think they’ve fooled me, then, brother?” Aro’s expression was greatly
amused, but Caius flinched. “Is the heartbeat you hear a trickery as well?”
Caius scowled, looking as chagrined as if Aro’s gentle questions had been blows.
“Calmly and carefully, brother,” Aro cautioned, still smiling at Renesmee. “I know
well how you love your justice, but there is no justice in acting against this unique
little one for her parentage. And so much to learn, so much to learn! I know you
don’t have my enthusiasm for collecting histories, but be tolerant with me,
brother, as I add a chapter that stuns me with its improbability. We came
expecting only justice and the sadness of false friends, but look what we have
gained instead! A new, bright knowledge of ourselves, our possibilities.”
He held out his hand to Renesmee in invitation. But this was not what she
wanted. She leaned away from me, stretching upward, to touch her fingertips to
Aro’s face.
Aro did not react with shock as almost everyone else had reacted to this
performance from Renesmee; he was as used to the flow of thought and memory
from other minds as Edward was.
His smile widened, and he sighed in satisfaction. “Brilliant,” he whispered.
Renesmee relaxed back into my arms, her little face very serious.
“Please?” she asked him.
His smile turned gentle. “Of course I have no desire to harm your loved ones,
precious Renesmee.”
Aro’s voice was so comforting and affectionate, it took me in for a second. And
then I heard Edward’s teeth grind together and, far behind us, Maggie’s outraged
hiss at the lie.
“I wonder,” Aro said thoughtfully, seeming unaware of the reaction to his
previous words. His eyes moved unexpectedly to Jacob, and instead of the disgust
the other Volturi viewed the giant wolf with, Aro’s eyes were filled with a longing
that I did not comprehend.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Edward said, the careful neutrality gone from his
suddenly harsh tone.
“Just an errant thought,” Aro said, appraising Jacob openly, and then his eyes
moved slowly across the two lines of werewolves behind us. Whatever Renesmee
had shown him, it made the wolves suddenly interesting to him.
508
“They don’t belong to us, Aro. They don’t follow our commands that way. They’re
here because they want to be.”
Jacob growled menacingly.
“They seem quite attached to you, though,” Aro said. “And your young mate and
your… family. Loyal.” His voice caressed the word softly.
“They’re committed to protecting human life, Aro. That makes them able to
coexist with us, but hardly with you. Unless you’re rethinking your lifestyle.”
Aro laughed merrily. “Just an errant thought,” he repeated. “You well know how
that is. We none of us can entirely control our subconscious desires.”
Edward grimaced. “I do know how that is. And I also know the difference
between that kind of thought and the kind with a purpose behind it. It could
never work, Aro.”
Jacob’s vast head turned in Edward’s direction, and a faint whine slipped from
between his teeth.
“He’s intrigued with the idea of… guard dogs,” Edward murmured back.
There was one second of dead silence, and then the sound of the furious snarls
ripping from the entire pack filled the giant clearing.
There was a sharp bark of command—from Sam, I guessed, though I didn’t turn
to look—and the complaint broke off into ominous quiet.
“I suppose that answers that question,” Aro said, laughing again. “This lot has
picked its side.”
Edward hissed and leaned forward. I clutched at his arm, wondering what could
be in Aro’s thoughts that would make him react so violently, while Felix and
Demetri slipped into crouches in synchronization. Aro waved them off again.
They all returned to their former posture, Edward included.
“So much to discuss,” Aro said, his tone suddenly that of an inundated
businessman. “So much to decide. If you and your furry protector will excuse me,
my dear Cullens, I must confer with my brothers.”
509
37. CONTRIVANCES
Aro did not rejoin his anxious guard waiting on the north side of the clearing;
instead, he waved them forward.
Edward started backing up immediately, pulling my arm and Emmett’s. We
hurried backward, keeping our eyes on the advancing threat. Jacob retreated
slowest, the fur on his shoulders standing straight up as he bared his fangs at Aro.
Renesmee grabbed the end of his tail as we retreated; she held it like a leash,
forcing him to stay with us. We reached our family at the same time that the dark
cloaks surrounded Aro again.
Now there were only fifty yards between them and us—a distance any of us could
leap in just a fraction of a second.
Caius began arguing with Aro at once.
“How can you abide this infamy? Why do we stand here impotently in the face of
such an outrageous crime, covered by such a ridiculous deception?” He held his
arms rigidly at his sides, his hands curled into claws. I wondered why he did not
just touch Aro to share his opinion. Were we seeing a division in their ranks
already? Could we be that lucky?
“Because it’s all true,” Aro told him calmly. “Every word of it. See how many
witnesses stand ready to give evidence that they have seen this miraculous child
grow and mature in just the short time they’ve known her. That they have felt the
warmth of the blood that pulses in her veins.” Aro’s gesture swept from Amun on
one side across to Siobhan on the other.
Caius reacted oddly to Aro’s soothing words, starting ever so slightly at the
mention of witnesses. The anger drained from his features, replaced by a cold
calculation. He glanced at the Volturi witnesses with an expression that looked
vaguely… nervous.
I glanced at the angry mob, too, and saw immediately that the description no
longer applied. The frenzy for action had turned to confusion. Whispered
conversations seethed through the crowd as they tried to make sense of what had
happened.
Caius was frowning, deep in thought. His speculative expression stoked the
flames of my smoldering anger at the same time that it worried me. What if the
guard acted again on some invisible signal, as they had in their march?
Anxiously, I inspected my shield; it felt just as impenetrable as before. I flexed it
now into a low, wide dome that arced over our company.
510
I could feel the sharp plumes of light where my family and friends stood—each
one an individual flavor that I thought I would be able to recognize with practice.
I already knew Edward’s—his was the very brightest of them all. The extra empty
space around the shining spots bothered me; there was no physical barrier to the
shield, and if any of the talented Volturi got under it, it would protect no one but
me. I felt my forehead crease as I pulled the elastic armor very carefully closer.
Carlisle was the farthest forward; I sucked the shield back inch by inch, trying to
wrap it as exactly to his body as I could.
My shield seemed to want to cooperate. It hugged his shape; when Carlisle
shifted to the side to stand nearer to Tanya, the elastic stretched with him, drawn
to his spark.
Fascinated, I tugged in more threads of the fabric, pulling it around each
glimmering shape that was a friend or ally. The shield clung to them willingly,
moving as they moved.
Only a second had passed; Caius was still deliberating.
“The werewolves,” he murmured at last.
With sudden panic, I realized that most of the werewolves were unprotected. I
was about to reach out to them when I realize that, strangely, I could still feel
their sparks. Curious, I drew the shield tighter in, until Amun and Kebi—the
farthest edge of our group—were outside with the wolves. Once they were on the
other side, their lights vanished. They no longer existed to that new sense. But the
wolves were still bright flames—or rather, half of them were. Hmm… I edged
outward again, and as soon as Sam was under cover, all the wolves were brilliant
sparks again.
Their minds must have been more interconnected than I’d imagined. If the Alpha
was inside my shield, the rest of their minds were every bit as protected as his.
“Ah, brother…,” Aro answered Caius’s statement with a pained look.
“Will you defend that alliance, too, Aro?” Caius demanded. “The Children of the
Moon have been our bitter enemies from the dawn of time. We have hunted them
to near extinction in Europe and Asia. Yet Carlisle encourages a familiar
relationship with this enormous infestation—no doubt in an attempt to
overthrow us. The better to protect his warped lifestyle.”
Edward cleared his throat loudly and Caius glared at him. Aro placed one thin,
delicate hand over his own face as if he was embarrassed for the other ancient.
“Caius, it’s the middle of the day,” Edward pointed out. He gestured to Jacob.
“These are not Children of the Moon, clearly. They bear no relation to your
enemies on the other side of the world.”
511
“You breed mutants here,” Caius spit back at him.
Edward’s jaw clenched and unclenched, then he answered evenly, “They aren’t
even werewolves. Aro can tell you all about it if you don’t believe me.”
Not werewolves? I shot a mystified look at Jacob. He lifted his huge shoulders
and let them drop—a shrug. He didn’t know what Edward was talking about,
either.
“Dear Caius, I would have warned you not to press this point if you had told me
your thoughts,” Aro murmured. “Though the creatures think of themselves as
werewolves, they are not. The more accurate name for them would be shapeshifters.
The choice of a wolf form was purely chance. It could have been a bear or
a hawk or a panther when the first change was made. These creatures truly have
nothing to do with the Children of the Moon. They have merely inherited this
skill from their fathers. It’s genetic—they do not continue their species by
infecting others the way true werewolves do.”
Caius glared at Aro with irritation and something more—an accusation of
betrayal, maybe.
“They know our secret,” he said flatly.
Edward looked about to answer this accusation, but Aro spoke faster. “They are
creatures of our supernatural world, brother. Perhaps even more dependent upon
secrecy than we are; they can hardly expose us. Carefully, Caius. Specious
allegations get us nowhere.”
Caius took a deep breath and nodded. They exchanged a long, significant glance.
I thought I understood the instruction behind Aro’s careful wording. False
charges weren’t helping convince the watching witnesses on either side; Aro was
cautioning Caius to move on to the next strategy. I wondered if the reason behind
the apparent strain between the two ancients—Caius’s unwillingness to share his
thoughts with a touch—was that Caius didn’t care about the show as much as Aro
did. If the coming slaughter was so much more essential to Caius than an
untarnished reputation.
“I want to talk to the informant,” Caius announced abruptly, and turned his glare
on Irina.
Irina wasn’t paying attention to Caius and Aro’s conversation; her face was
twisted in agony, her eyes locked on her sisters, lined up to die. It was clear on
her face that she knew now her accusation had been totally false.
“Irina,” Caius barked, unhappy to have to address her.
512
She looked up, startled and instantly afraid.
Caius snapped his fingers.
Hesitantly, she moved from the fringes of the Volturi formation to stand in front
of Caius again.
“So you appear to have been quite mistaken in your allegations,” Caius began.
Tanya and Kate leaned forward anxiously.
“I’m sorry,” Irina whispered. “I should have made sure of what I was seeing. But I
had no idea. . . .” She gestured helplessly in our direction.
“Dear Caius, could you expect her to have guessed in an instant something so
strange and impossible?” Aro asked. “Any of us would have made the same
assumption.”
Caius flicked his fingers at Aro to silence him.
“We all know you made a mistake,” he said brusquely. “I meant to speak of your
motivations.”
Irina waited nervously for him to continue, and then repeated, “My motivations?”
“Yes, for coming to spy on them in the first place.”
Irina flinched at the word spy.
“You were unhappy with the Cullens, were you not?”
She turned her miserable eyes to Carlisle’s face. “I was,” she admitted.
“Because… ?” Caius prompted.
“Because the werewolves killed my friend,” she whispered. “And the Cullens
wouldn’t stand aside to let me avenge him.”
“The shape-shifters,” Aro corrected quietly.
“So the Cullens sided with the shape-shifters against our own kind—against the
friend of a friend, even,” Caius summarized.
I heard Edward make a disgusted sound under his breath. Caius was ticking
down his list, looking for an accusation that would stick.
Irina’s shoulders stiffened. “That’s how I saw it.”
513
Caius waited again and then prompted, “If you’d like to make a formal complaint
against the shape-shifters—and the Cullens for supporting their actions—now
would be the time.” He smiled a tiny cruel smile, waiting for Irina to give him his
next excuse.
Maybe Caius didn’t understand real families—relationships based on love rather
than just the love of power. Maybe he overestimated the potency of vengeance.
Irina’s jaw jerked up, her shoulders squared.
“No, I have no complaint against the wolves, or the Cullens. You came here today
to destroy an immortal child. No immortal child exists. This was my mistake, and
I take full responsibility for it. But the Cullens are innocent, and you have no
reason to still be here. I’m so sorry,” she said to us, and then she turned her face
toward the Volturi witnesses. “There was no crime. There’s no valid reason for
you to continue here.”
Caius raised his hand as she spoke, and in it was a strange metal object, carved
and ornate.
This was a signal. The response was so fast that we all stared in stunned disbelief
while it happened. Before there was time to react, it was over.
Three of the Volturi soldiers leaped forward, and Irina was completely obscured
by their gray cloaks. In the same instant, a horrible metallic screeching ripped
through the clearing. Caius slithered into the center of the gray melee, and the
shocking squealing sound exploded into a startling upward shower of sparks and
tongues of flame. The soldiers leaped back from the sudden inferno, immediately
retaking their places in the guard’s perfectly straight line.
Caius stood alone beside the blazing remains of Irina, the metal object in his
hand still throwing a thick jet of flame into the pyre.
With a small clicking sound, the fire shooting from Caius’s hand disappeared. A
gasp rippled through the mass of witnesses behind the Volturi.
We were too aghast to make any noise at all. It was one thing to know that death
was coming with fierce, unstoppable speed; it was another thing to watch it
happen.
Caius smiled coldly. “Now she has taken full responsibility for her actions.”
His eyes flashed to our front line, touching swiftly on Tanya’s and Kate’s frozen
forms.
In that second I understood that Caius had never underestimated the ties of a
true family. This was the ploy. He had not wanted Irina’s complaint; he had
514
wanted her defiance. His excuse to destroy her, to ignite the violence that filled
the air like a thick, combustible mist. He had thrown a match.
The strained peace of this summit already teetered more precariously than an
elephant on a tightrope. Once the fight began, there would be no way to stop it. It
would only escalate until one side was entirely extinct. Our side. Caius knew this.
So did Edward.
“Stop them!” Edward cried out, jumping to grab Tanya’s arm as she lurched
forward toward the smiling Caius with a maddened cry of pure rage. She couldn’t
shake Edward off before Carlisle had his arms locked around her waist.
“It’s too late to help her,” he reasoned urgently as she struggled. “Don’t give him
what he wants!”
Kate was harder to contain. Shrieking wordlessly like Tanya, she broke into the
first stride of the attack that would end with everyone’s death. Rosalie was closest
to her, but before Rose could clinch her in a headlock, Kate shocked her so
violently that Rose crumpled to the ground. Emmett caught Kate’s arm and threw
her down, then staggered back, his knees giving out. Kate rolled to her feet, and it
looked like no one could stop her.
Garrett flung himself at her, knocking her to the ground again. He bound his
arms around hers, locking his hands around his own wrists. I saw his body spasm
as she shocked him. His eyes rolled back in his head, but his hold did not break.
“Zafrina,” Edward shouted.
Kate’s eyes went blank and her screams turned to moans. Tanya stopped
struggling.
“Give me my sight back,” Tanya hissed.
Desperately, but with all the delicacy I could manage, I pulled my shield even
tighter against the sparks of my friends, peeling it back carefully from Kate while
trying to keep it around Garrett, making it a thin skin between them.
And then Garrett was in command of himself again, holding Kate to the snow.
“If I let you up, will you knock me down again, Katie?” he whispered.
She snarled in response, still thrashing blindly.
“Listen to me, Tanya, Kate,” Carlisle said in a low but intense whisper.
“Vengeance doesn’t help her now. Irina wouldn’t want you to waste your lives this
way. Think about what you’re doing. If you attack them, we all die.”
515
Tanya’s shoulders hunched with grief, and she leaned into Carlisle for support.
Kate was finally still. Carlisle and Garrett continued to console the sisters with
words too urgent to sound like comfort.
And my attention returned to the weight of the stares that pressed down on our
moment of chaos. From the corners of my eyes, I could see that Edward and
everyone else besides Carlisle and Garrett were on their guard again as well.
The heaviest glare came from Caius, staring with enraged disbelief at Kate and
Garrett in the snow. Aro was watching the same two, incredulity the strongest
emotion on his face. He knew what Kate could do. He had felt her potency
through Edward’s memories.
Did he understand what was happening now—did he see that my shield had
grown in strength and subtlety far beyond what Edward knew me to be capable
of? Or did he think Garrett had learned his own form of immunity?
The Volturi guard no longer stood at disciplined attention—they were crouched
forward, waiting to spring the counterstrike the moment we attacked.
Behind them, forty-three witnesses watched with very different expressions than
the ones they’d worn entering the clearing. Confusion had turned to suspicion.
The lightning-fast destruction of Irina had shaken them all. What had been her
crime?
Without the immediate attack that Caius had counted on to distract from his rash
act, the Volturi witnesses were left questioning exactly what was going on here.
Aro glanced back swiftly while I watched, his face betraying him with one flash of
vexation. His need for an audience had backfired badly.
I heard Stefan and Vladimir murmur to each other in quiet glee at Aro’s
discomfort.
Aro was obviously concerned with keeping his white hat, as the Romanians had
put it. But I didn’t believe that the Volturi would leave us in peace just to save
their reputation. After they finished with us, surely they would slaughter their
witnesses for that purpose. I felt a strange, sudden pity for the mass of the
strangers the Volturi had brought to watch us die. Demetri would hunt them until
they were extinct, too.
For Jacob and Renesmee, for Alice and Jasper, for Alistair, and for these
strangers who had not known what today would cost them, Demetri had to die.
Aro touched Caius’s shoulder lightly. “Irina has been punished for bearing false
witness against this child.” So that was to be their excuse. He went on. “Perhaps
we should return to the matter at hand?”
516
Caius straightened, and his expression hardened into unreadability. He stared
forward, seeing nothing. His face reminded me, oddly, of a person who’d just
learned he’d been demoted.
Aro drifted forward, Renata, Felix, and Demetri automatically moving with him.
“Just to be thorough,” he said, “I’d like to speak with a few of your witnesses.
Procedure, you know.” He waved a hand dismissively.
Two things happened at once. Caius’s eyes focused on Aro, and the tiny cruel
smile came back. And Edward hissed, his hands balling up in fists so tight it
looked like the bones in his knuckles would split through his diamond-hard skin.
I was desperate to ask him what was going on, but Aro was close enough to hear
even the quietest breath. I saw Carlisle glance anxiously at Edward’s face, and
then his own face hardened.
While Caius had blundered through useless accusations and injudicious attempts
to trigger the fight, Aro must have been coming up with a more effective strategy.
Aro ghosted across the snow to the far western end of our line, stopping about ten
yards from Amun and Kebi. The nearby wolves bristled angrily but held their
positions.
“Ah, Amun, my southern neighbor!” Aro said warmly. “It has been so long since
you’ve visited me.”
Amun was motionless with anxiety, Kebi a statue at his side. “Time means little; I
never notice its passing,” Amun said through unmoving lips.
“So true,” Aro agreed. “But maybe you had another reason to stay away?”
Amun said nothing.
“It can be terribly time-consuming to organize newcomers into a coven. I know
that well! I’m grateful I have others to deal with the tedium. I’m glad your new
additions have fit in so well. I would have loved to have been introduced. I’m sure
you were meaning to come to see me soon.”
“Of course,” Amun said, his tone so emotionless that it was impossible to tell if
there was any fear or sarcasm in his assent.
“Oh well, we’re all together now! Isn’t it lovely?”
Amun nodded, his face blank.
517
“But the reason for your presence here is not as pleasant, unfortunately. Carlisle
called on you to witness?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you witness for him?”
Amun spoke with the same cold lack of emotion. “I’ve observed the child in
question. It was evident almost immediately that she was not an immortal child—
”
“Perhaps we should define our terminology,” Aro interrupted, “now that there
seem to be new classifications. By immortal child, you mean of course a human
child who had been bitten and thus transformed into a vampire.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.”
“What else did you observe about the child?”
“The same things that you surely saw in Edward’s mind. That the child is his
biologically. That she grows. That she learns.”
“Yes, yes,” Aro said, a hint of impatience in his otherwise amiable tone. “But
specifically in your few weeks here, what did you see?”
Amun’s brow furrowed. “That she grows… quickly.”
Aro smiled. “And do you believe that she should be allowed to live?”
A hiss escaped my lips, and I was not alone. Half the vampires in our line echoed
my protest. The sound was a low sizzle of fury hanging in the air. Across the
meadow, a few of the Volturi witnesses made the same noise. Edward stepped
back and wrapped a restraining hand around my wrist.
Aro did not turn to the noise, but Amun glanced around uneasily.
“I did not come to make judgments,” he equivocated.
Aro laughed lightly. “Just your opinion.”
Amun’s chin lifted. “I see no danger in the child. She learns even more swiftly
than she grows.”
Aro nodded, considering. After a moment, he turned away.
“Aro?” Amun called.
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Aro whirled back. “Yes, friend?”
“I gave my witness. I have no more business here. My mate and I would like to
take our leave now.”
Aro smiled warmly. “Of course. I’m so glad we were able to chat for a bit. And I’m
sure we’ll see each other again soon.”
Amun’s lips were a tight line as he inclined his head once, acknowledging the
barely concealed threat. He touched Kebi’s arm, and then the two of them ran
quickly to the southern edge of the meadow and disappeared into the trees. I
knew they wouldn’t stop running for a very long time.
Aro was gliding back along the length of our line to the east, his guards hovering
tensely. He stopped when he was in front of Siobhan’s massive form.
“Hello, dear Siobhan. You are as lovely as ever.”
Siobhan inclined her head, waiting.
“And you?” he asked. “Would you answer my questions the same way Amun
has?”
“I would,” Siobhan said. “But I would perhaps add a little more. Renesmee
understands the limitations. She’s no danger to humans—she blends in better
than we do. She poses no threat of exposure.”
“Can you think of none?” Aro asked soberly.
Edward growled, a low ripping sound deep in his throat.
Caius’s cloudy crimson eyes brightened.
Renata reached out protectively toward her master.
And Garrett freed Kate to take a step forward, ignoring Kate’s hand as she tried to
caution him this time.
Siobhan answered slowly, “I don’t think I follow you.”
Aro drifted lightly back, casually, but toward the rest of his guard. Renata, Felix,
and Demetri were closer than his shadow.
“There is no broken law,” Aro said in a placating voice, but every one of us could
hear that a qualification was coming. I fought back the rage that tried to claw its
way up my throat and snarl out my defiance. I hurled the fury into my shield,
thickening it, making sure everyone was protected.
519
“No broken law,” Aro repeated. “However, does it follow then that there is no
danger? No.” He shook his head gently. “That is a separate issue.”
The only response was the tightening of already stretched nerves, and Maggie, at
the fringes of our band of fighters, shaking her head with slow anger.
Aro paced thoughtfully, looking as if he floated rather than touched the ground
with his feet. I noticed every pass took him closer to the protection of his guard.
“She is unique… utterly, impossibly unique. Such a waste it would be, to destroy
something so lovely. Especially when we could learn so much . . .” He sighed, as if
unwilling to go on. “But there is danger, danger that cannot simply be ignored.”
No one answered his assertion. It was dead silent as he continued in a monologue
that sounded as if he spoke it for himself only.
“How ironic it is that as the humans advance, as their faith in science grows and
controls their world, the more free we are from discovery. Yet, as we become ever
more uninhibited by their disbelief in the supernatural, they become strong
enough in their technologies that, if they wished, they could actually pose a threat
to us, even destroy some of us.
“For thousands and thousands of years, our secrecy has been more a matter of
convenience, of ease, than of actual safety. This last raw, angry century has given
birth to weapons of such power that they endanger even immortals. Now our
status as mere myth in truth protects us from these weak creatures we hunt.
“This amazing child”—he lifted his hand palm down as if to rest it on Renesmee,
though he was forty yards from her now, almost within the Volturi formation
again—“if we could but know her potential—know with absolute certainty that
she could always remain shrouded within the obscurity that protects us. But we
know nothing of what she will become! Her own parents are plagued by fears of
her future. We cannot know what she will grow to be.” He paused, looking first at
our witnesses, and then, meaningfully, at his own. His voice gave a good
imitation of sounding torn by his words.
Still looking at his own witnesses, he spoke again. “Only the known is safe. Only
the known is tolerable. The unknown is… a vulnerability.”
Caius’s smile widened viciously.
“You’re reaching, Aro,” Carlisle said in a bleak voice.
“Peace, friend.” Aro smiled, his face as kind, his voice as gentle, as ever. “Let us
not be hasty. Let us look at this from every side.”
520
“May I offer a side to be considered?” Garrett petitioned in a level tone, taking
another step forward.
“Nomad,” Aro said, nodding in permission.
Garrett’s chin lifted. His eyes focused on the huddled mass at the end of the
meadow, and he spoke directly to the Volturi witnesses.
“I came here at Carlisle’s request, as the others, to witness,” he said. “That is
certainly no longer necessary, with regard to the child. We all see what she is.
“I stayed to witness something else. You.” He jabbed his finger toward the wary
vampires. “Two of you I know—Makenna, Charles—and I can see that many of
you others are also wanderers, roamers like myself. Answering to none. Think
carefully on what I tell you now.
“These ancient ones did not come here for justice as they told you. We suspected
as much, and now it has been proved. They came, misled, but with a valid excuse
for their action. Witness now as they seek flimsy excuses to continue their true
mission. Witness them struggle to find a justification for their true purpose—to
destroy this family here.” He gestured toward Carlisle and Tanya.
“The Volturi come to erase what they perceive as the competition. Perhaps, like
me, you look at this clan’s golden eyes and marvel. They are difficult to
understand, it’s true. But the ancient ones look and see something besides their
strange choice. They see power.
“I have witnessed the bonds within this family—I say family and not coven. These
strange golden-eyed ones deny their very natures. But in return have they found
something worth even more, perhaps, than mere gratification of desire? I’ve
made a little study of them in my time here, and it seems to me that intrinsic to
this intense family binding—that which makes them possible at all—is the
peaceful character of this life of sacrifice. There is no aggression here like we all
saw in the large southern clans that grew and diminished so quickly in their wild
feuds. There is no thought for domination. And Aro knows this better than I do.”
I watched Aro’s face as Garrett’s words condemned him, waiting tensely for some
response. But Aro’s face was only politely amused, as if waiting for a tantrumthrowing
child to realize that no one was paying attention to his histrionics.
“Carlisle assured us all, when he told us what was coming, that he did not call us
here to fight. These witnesses”—Garrett pointed to Siobhan and Liam—“agreed to
give evidence, to slow the Volturi advance with their presence so that Carlisle
would get the chance to present his case.
“But some of us wondered”—his eyes flashed to Eleazar’s face—“if Carlisle having
truth on his side would be enough to stop the so-called justice. Are the Volturi
521
here to protect the safety of our secrecy, or to protect their own power? Did they
come to destroy an illegal creation, or a way of life? Could they be satisfied when
the danger turned out to be no more than a misunderstanding? Or would they
push the issue without the excuse of justice?
“We have the answer to all these questions. We heard it in Aro’s lying words—we
have one with a gift of knowing such things for certain—and we see it now in
Caius’s eager smile. Their guard is just a mindless weapon, a tool in their masters’
quest for domination.
“So now there are more questions, questions that you must answer. Who rules
you, nomads? Do you answer to someone’s will besides your own? Are you free to
choose your path, or will the Volturi decide how you will live?
“I came to witness. I stay to fight. The Volturi care nothing for the death of the
child. They seek the death of our free will.”
He turned, then, to face the ancients. “So come, I say! Let’s hear no more lying
rationalizations. Be honest in your intents as we will be honest in ours. We will
defend our freedom. You will or will not attack it. Choose now, and let these
witnesses see the true issue debated here.”
Once more he looked to the Volturi witnesses, his eyes probing each face. The
power of his words was evident in their expressions. “You might consider joining
us. If you think the Volturi will let you live to tell this tale, you are mistaken. We
may all be destroyed”—he shrugged—“but then again, maybe not. Perhaps we are
on more equal footing than they know. Perhaps the Volturi have finally met their
match. I promise you this, though—if we fall, so do you.”
He ended his heated speech by stepping back to Kate’s side and then sliding
forward in a half-crouch, prepared for the onslaught.
Aro smiled. “A very pretty speech, my revolutionary friend.”
Garrett remained poised for attack. “Revolutionary?” he growled. “Who am I
revolting against, might I ask? Are you my king? Do you wish me to call you
master, too, like your sycophantic guard?”
“Peace, Garrett,” Aro said tolerantly. “I meant only to refer to your time of birth.
Still a patriot, I see.”
Garrett glared back furiously.
“Let us ask our witnesses,” Aro suggested. “Let us hear their thoughts before we
make our decision. Tell us, friends”—and he turned his back casually on us,
moving a few yards toward his mass of nervous observers hovering even closer
now to the edge of the forest—“what do you think of all this? I can assure you the
522
child is not what we feared. Do we take the risk and let the child live? Do we put
our world in jeopardy to preserve their family intact? Or does earnest Garrett
have the right of it? Will you join them in a fight against our sudden quest for
dominion?”
The witnesses met his gaze with careful faces. One, a small black-haired woman,
looked briefly at the dark blond male at her side.
“Are those our only choices?” she asked suddenly, gaze flashing back to Aro.
“Agree with you, or fight against you?”
“Of course not, most charming Makenna,” Aro said, appearing horrified that
anyone could come to that conclusion. “You may go in peace, of course, as Amun
did, even if you disagree with the council’s decision.”
Makenna looked at her mate’s face again, and he nodded minutely.
“We did not come here for a fight.” She paused, exhaled, then said, “We came
here to witness. And our witness is that this condemned family is innocent.
Everything that Garrett claimed is the truth.”
“Ah,” Aro said sadly. “I’m sorry you see us in that way. But such is the nature of
our work.”
“It is not what I see, but what I feel,” Makenna’s maize-haired mate spoke in a
high, nervous voice. He glanced at Garrett. “Garrett said they have ways of
knowing lies. I, too, know when I am hearing the truth, and when I am not.” With
frightened eyes he moved closer to his mate, waiting for Aro’s reaction.
“Do not fear us, friend Charles. No doubt the patriot truly believes what he says,”
Aro chuckled lightly, and Charles’s eyes narrowed.
“That is our witness,” Makenna said. “We’re leaving now.”
She and Charles backed away slowly, not turning before they were lost from view
in the trees. One other stranger began to retreat the same way, then three more
darted after him.
I evaluated the thirty-seven vampires that stayed. A few of them appeared just
too confused to make the decision. But the majority of them seemed only too
aware of the direction this confrontation had taken. I guessed that they were
giving up a head start in favor of knowing exactly who would be chasing after
them.
I was sure Aro saw the same thing I did. He turned away, walking back to his
guard with a measured pace. He stopped in front of them and addressed them in
a clear voice.
523
“We are outnumbered, dearest ones,” he said. “We can expect no outside help.
Should we leave this question undecided to save ourselves?”
“No, master,” they whispered in unison.
“Is the protection of our world worth perhaps the loss of some of our number?”
“Yes,” they breathed. “We are not afraid.”
Aro smiled and turned to his black-clad companions.
“Brothers,” Aro said somberly, “there is much to consider here.”
“Let us counsel,” Caius said eagerly.
“Let us counsel,” Marcus repeated in an uninterested tone.
Aro turned his back to us again, facing the other ancients. They joined hands to
form a black-shrouded triangle.
As soon as Aro’s attention was engaged in the silent counsel, two more of their
witnesses disappeared silently into the forest. I hoped, for their sakes, that they
were fast.
This was it. Carefully, I loosened Renesmee’s arms from my neck.
“You remember what I told you?”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she nodded. “I love you,” she whispered.
Edward was watching us now, his topaz eyes wide. Jacob stared at us from the
corner of his big dark eye.
“I love you, too,” I said, and then I touched her locket. “More than my own life.” I
kissed her forehead.
Jacob whined uneasily.
I stretched up on my toes and whispered into his ear. “Wait until they’re totally
distracted, then run with her. Get as far from this place as you possibly can.
When you’ve gone as far as you can on foot, she has what you need to get you in
the air.”
Edward’s and Jacob’s faces were almost identical masks of horror, despite the
fact that one of them was an animal.
524
Renesmee reached for Edward, and he took her in his arms. They hugged each
other tightly.
“This is what you kept from me?” he whispered over her head.
“From Aro,” I breathed.
“Alice?”
I nodded.
His face twisted with understanding and pain. Had that been the expression on
my face when I’d finally put together Alice’s clues?
Jacob was growling quietly, a low rasp that was as even and unbroken as a purr.
His hackles were stiff and his teeth exposed.
Edward kissed Renesmee’s forehead and both her cheeks, then he lifted her to
Jacob’s shoulder. She scrambled agilely onto his back, pulling herself into place
with handfuls of his fur, and fit herself easily into the dip between his massive
shoulder blades.
Jacob turned to me, his expressive eyes full of agony, the rumbling growl still
grating through his chest.
“You’re the only one we could ever trust her with,” I murmured to him. “If you
didn’t love her so much, I could never bear this. I know you can protect her,
Jacob.”
He whined again, and dipped his head to butt it against my shoulder.
“I know,” I whispered. “I love you, too, Jake. You’ll always be my best man.”
A tear the size of a baseball rolled into the russet fur beneath his eye.
Edward leaned his head against the same shoulder where he’d placed Renesmee.
“Goodbye, Jacob, my brother… my son.”
The others were not oblivious to the farewell scene. Their eyes were locked on the
silent black triangle, but I could tell they were listening.
“Is there no hope, then?” Carlisle whispered. There was no fear in his voice. Just
determination and acceptance.
“There is absolutely hope,” I murmured back. It could be true, I told myself. “I
only know my own fate.”
525
Edward took my hand. He knew that he was included. When I said my fate, there
was no question that I meant the two of us. We were just halves of the whole.
Esme’s breath was ragged behind me. She moved past us, touching our faces as
she passed, to stand beside Carlisle and hold his hand.
Suddenly, we were surrounded by murmured goodbyes and I love you’s.
“If we live through this,” Garrett whispered to Kate, “I’ll follow you anywhere,
woman.”
“Now he tells me,” she muttered.
Rosalie and Emmett kissed quickly but passionately.
Tia caressed Benjamin’s face. He smiled back cheerfully, catching her hand and
holding it against his cheek.
I didn’t see all the expressions of love and pain. I was distracted by a sudden
fluttering pressure against the outside of my shield. I couldn’t tell where it came
from, but it felt like it was directed at the edges of our group, Siobhan and Liam
particularly. The pressure did no damage, and then it was gone.
There was no change in the silent, still forms of the counseling ancients. But
perhaps there was some signal I’d missed.
“Get ready,” I whispered to the others. “It’s starting.”
526
38. POWER
“Chelsea is trying to break our bindings,” Edward whispered. “But she can’t find
them. She can’t feel us here. . . .” His eyes cut to me. “Are you doing that?”
I smiled grimly at him. “I am all over this.”
Edward lurched away from me suddenly, his hand reaching out toward Carlisle.
At the same time, I felt a much sharper jab against the shield where it wrapped
protectively around Carlisle’s light. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant,
either.
“Carlisle? Are you all right?” Edward gasped frantically.
“Yes. Why?”
“Jane,” Edward answered.
The moment that he said her name, a dozen pointed attacks hit in a second,
stabbing all over the elastic shield, aimed at twelve different bright spots. I flexed,
making sure the shield was undamaged. It didn’t seem like Jane had been able to
pierce it. I glanced around quickly; everyone was fine.
“Incredible,” Edward said.
“Why aren’t they waiting for the decision?” Tanya hissed.
“Normal procedure,” Edward answered brusquely. “They usually incapacitate
those on trial so they can’t escape.”
I looked across at Jane, who was staring at our group with furious disbelief. I was
pretty sure that, besides me, she’d never seen anyone remain standing through
her fiery assault.
It probably wasn’t very mature. But I figured it would take Aro about half a
second to guess—if he hadn’t already—that my shield was more powerful than
Edward had known; I already had a big target on my forehead and there was
really no point in trying to keep the extent of what I could do a secret. So I
grinned a huge, smug smile right at Jane.
Her eyes narrowed, and I felt another stab of pressure, this time directed at me.
I pulled my lips wider, showing my teeth.
527
Jane let out a high-pitched scream of a snarl. Everyone jumped, even the
disciplined guard. Everyone but the ancients, who didn’t so much as look up from
their conference. Her twin caught her arm as she crouched to spring.
The Romanians started chuckling with dark anticipation.
“I told you this was our time,” Vladimir said to Stefan.
“Just look at the witch’s face,” Stefan chortled.
Alec patted his sister’s shoulder soothingly, then tucked her under his arm. He
turned his face to us, perfectly smooth, completely angelic.
I waited for some pressure, some sign of his attack, but I felt nothing. He
continued to stare in our direction, his pretty face composed. Was he attacking?
Was he getting through my shield? Was I the only one who could still see him? I
clutched at Edward’s hand.
“Are you okay?” I choked out.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Is Alec trying?”
Edward nodded. “His gift is slower than Jane’s. It creeps. It will touch us in a few
seconds.”
I saw it then, when I had a clue of what to look for.
A strange clear haze was oozing across the snow, nearly invisible against the
white. It reminded me of a mirage—a slight warping of the view, a hint of a
shimmer. I pushed my shield out from Carlisle and the rest of the front line,
afraid to have the slinking mist too close when it hit. What if it stole right through
my intangible protection? Should we run?
A low rumbling murmured through the ground under our feet, and a gust of wind
blew the snow into sudden flurries between our position and the Volturi’s.
Benjamin had seen the creeping threat, too, and now he tried to blow the mist
away from us. The snow made it easy to see where he threw the wind, but the
mist didn’t react in any way. It was like air blowing harmlessly through a shadow;
the shadow was immune.
The triangular formation of the ancients finally broke apart when, with a racking
groan, a deep, narrow fissure opened in a long zigzag across the middle of the
clearing. The earth rocked under my feet for a moment. The drifts of snow
plummeted into the hole, but the mist skipped right across it, as untouched by
gravity as it had been by wind.
528
Aro and Caius watched the opening earth with wide eyes. Marcus looked in the
same direction without emotion.
They didn’t speak; they waited, too, as the mist approached us. The wind shrieked
louder but didn’t change the course of the mist. Jane was smiling now.
And then the mist hit a wall.
I could taste it as soon as it touched my shield—it had a dense, sweet, cloying
flavor. It made me remember dimly the numbness of Novocain on my tongue.
The mist curled upward, seeking a breach, a weakness. It found none. The fingers
of searching haze twisted upward and around, trying to find a way in, and in the
process illustrating the astonishing size of the protective screen.
There were gasps on both sides of Benjamin’s gorge.
“Well done, Bella!” Benjamin cheered in a low voice.
My smile returned.
I could see Alec’s narrowed eyes, doubt on his face for the first time as his mist
swirled harmlessly around the edges of my shield.
And then I knew that I could do this. Obviously, I would be the number-one
priority, the first one to die, but as long as I held, we were on more than equal
footing with the Volturi. We still had Benjamin and Zafrina; they had no
supernatural help at all. As long as I held.
“I’m going to have to concentrate,” I whispered to Edward. “When it comes to
hand to hand, it’s going to be harder to keep the shield around the right people.”
“I’ll keep them off you.”
“No. You have to get to Demetri. Zafrina will keep them away from me.”
Zafrina nodded solemnly. “No one will touch this young one,” she promised
Edward.
“I’d go after Jane and Alec myself, but I can do more good here.”
“Jane’s mine,” Kate hissed. “She needs a taste of her own medicine.”
“And Alec owes me many lives, but I will settle for his,” Vladimir growled from
the other side. “He’s mine.”
“I just want Caius,” Tanya said evenly.
529
The others started divvying up opponents, too, but they were quickly interrupted.
Aro, staring calmly at Alec’s ineffective mist, finally spoke.
“Before we vote,” he began.
I shook my head angrily. I was tired of this charade. The bloodlust was igniting in
me again, and I was sorry that I would help the others more by standing still. I
wanted to fight.
“Let me remind you,” Aro continued, “whatever the council’s decision, there need
be no violence here.”
Edward snarled out a dark laugh.
Aro stared at him sadly. “It will be a regrettable waste to our kind to lose any of
you. But you especially, young Edward, and your newborn mate. The Volturi
would be glad to welcome many of you into our ranks. Bella, Benjamin, Zafrina,
Kate. There are many choices before you. Consider them.”
Chelsea’s attempt to sway us fluttered impotently against my shield. Aro’s gaze
swept across our hard eyes, looking for any indication of hesitation. From his
expression, he found none.
I knew he was desperate to keep Edward and me, to imprison us the way he had
hoped to enslave Alice. But this fight was too big. He would not win if I lived. I
was fiercely glad to be so powerful that I left him no way not to kill me.
“Let us vote, then,” he said with apparent reluctance.
Caius spoke with eager haste. “The child is an unknown quantity. There is no
reason to allow such a risk to exist. It must be destroyed, along with all who
protect it.” He smiled in expectation.
I fought back a shriek of defiance to answer his cruel smirk.
Marcus lifted his uncaring eyes, seeming to look through us as he voted.
“I see no immediate danger. The child is safe enough for now. We can always
reevaluate later. Let us leave in peace.” His voice was even fainter than his
brothers’ feathery sighs.
None of the guard relaxed their ready positions at his disagreeing words. Caius’s
anticipatory grin did not falter. It was as if Marcus hadn’t spoken at all.
“I must make the deciding vote, it seems,” Aro mused.
530
Suddenly, Edward stiffened at my side. “Yes!” he hissed.
I risked a glance at him. His face glowed with an expression of triumph that I
didn’t understand—it was the expression an angel of destruction might wear
while the world burned. Beautiful and terrifying.
There was a low reaction from the guard, an uneasy murmur.
“Aro?” Edward called, nearly shouted, undisguised victory in his voice.
Aro hesitated for a second, assessing this new mood warily before he answered.
“Yes, Edward? You have something further… ?”
“Perhaps,” Edward said pleasantly, controlling his unexplained excitement.
“First, if I could clarify one point?”
“Certainly,” Aro said, raising his eyebrows, nothing now but polite interest in his
tone. My teeth ground together; Aro was never more dangerous than when he
was gracious.
“The danger you foresee from my daughter—this stems entirely from our inability
to guess how she will develop? That is the crux of the matter?”
“Yes, friend Edward,” Aro agreed. “If we could but be positive… be sure that, as
she grows, she will be able to stay concealed from the human world—not
endanger the safety of our obscurity . . .” He trailed off, shrugging.
“So, if we could only know for sure,” Edward suggested, “exactly what she will
become… then there would be no need for a council at all?”
“If there was some way to be absolutely sure,” Aro agreed, his feathery voice
slightly more shrill. He couldn’t see where Edward was leading him. Neither
could I. “Then, yes, there would be no question to debate.”
“And we would part in peace, good friends once again?” Edward asked with a hint
of irony.
Even more shrill. “Of course, my young friend. Nothing would please me more.”
Edward chuckled exultantly. “Then I do have something more to offer.”
Aro’s eyes narrowed. “She is absolutely unique. Her future can only be guessed
at.”
“Not absolutely unique,” Edward disagreed. “Rare, certainly, but not one of a
kind.”
531
I fought the shock, the sudden hope springing to life, as it threatened to distract
me. The sickly-looking mist still swirled around the edges of my shield. And, as I
struggled to focus, I felt again the sharp, stabbing pressure against my protective
hold.
“Aro, would you ask Jane to stop attacking my wife?” Edward asked courteously.
“We are still discussing evidence.”
Aro raised one hand. “Peace, dear ones. Let us hear him out.”
The pressure disappeared. Jane bared her teeth at me; I couldn’t help grinning
back at her.
“Why don’t you join us, Alice?” Edward called loudly.
“Alice,” Esme whispered in shock.
Alice!
Alice, Alice, Alice!
“Alice!” “Alice!” other voices murmured around me.
“Alice,” Aro breathed.
Relief and violent joy surged through me. It took all my will to keep the shield
where it was. Alec’s mist still tested, seeking a weakness—Jane would see if I left
any holes.
And then I heard them running through the forest, flying, closing the distance as
quickly as they could with no slowing effort at silence.
Both sides were motionless in expectation. The Volturi witnesses scowled in fresh
confusion.
Then Alice danced into the clearing from the southwest, and I felt like the bliss of
seeing her face again might knock me off my feet. Jasper was only inches behind
her, his sharp eyes fierce. Close after them ran three strangers; the first was a tall,
muscular female with wild dark hair—obviously Kachiri. She had the same
elongated limbs and features as the other Amazons, even more pronounced in her
case.
The next was a small olive-toned female vampire with a long braid of black hair
bobbing against her back. Her deep burgundy eyes flitted nervously around the
confrontation before her.
532
And the last was a young man… not quite as fast nor quite as fluid in his run. His
skin was an impossible rich, dark brown. His wary eyes flashed across the
gathering, and they were the color of warm teak. His hair was black and braided,
too, like the woman’s, though not as long. He was beautiful.
As he neared us, a new sound sent shock waves through the watching crowd—the
sound of another heartbeat, accelerated with exertion.
Alice leaped lightly over the edges of the dissipating mist that lapped at my shield
and came to a sinuous stop at Edward’s side. I reached out to touch her arm, and
so did Edward, Esme, Carlisle. There wasn’t time for any other welcome. Jasper
and the others followed her through the shield.
All the guard watched, speculation in their eyes, as the latecomers crossed the
invisible border without difficulty. The brawny ones, Felix and the others like
him, focused their suddenly hopeful eyes on me. They had not been sure of what
my shield repelled, but it was clear now that it would not stop a physical attack.
As soon as Aro gave the order, the blitz would ensue, me the only object. I
wondered how many Zafrina would be able to blind, and how much that would
slow them. Long enough for Kate and Vladimir to take Jane and Alec out of the
equation? That was all I could ask for.
Edward, despite his absorption in the coup he was directing, stiffened furiously in
response to their thoughts. He controlled himself and spoke to Aro again.
“Alice has been searching for her own witnesses these last weeks,” he said to the
ancient. “And she does not come back empty-handed. Alice, why don’t you
introduce the witnesses you’ve brought?”
Caius snarled. “The time for witnesses is past! Cast your vote, Aro!”
Aro raised one finger to silence his brother, his eyes glued to Alice’s face.
Alice stepped forward lightly and introduced the strangers. “This is Huilen and
her nephew, Nahuel.”
Hearing her voice… it was like she’d never left.
Caius’s eyes tightened as Alice named the relationship between the newcomers.
The Volturi witnesses hissed amongst themselves. The vampire world was
changing, and everyone could feel it.
“Speak, Huilen,” Aro commanded. “Give us the witness you were brought to
bear.”
The slight woman looked to Alice nervously. Alice nodded in encouragement, and
Kachiri put her long hand on the little vampire’s shoulder.
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“I am Huilen,” the woman announced in clear but strangely accented English. As
she continued, it was apparent she had prepared herself to tell this story, that she
had practiced. It flowed like a well-known nursery rhyme. “A century and a half
ago, I lived with my people, the Mapuche. My sister was Pire. Our parents named
her after the snow on the mountains because of her fair skin. And she was very
beautiful—too beautiful. She came to me one day in secret and told me of the
angel that found her in the woods, that visited her by night. I warned her.” Huilen
shook her head mournfully. “As if the bruises on her skin were not warning
enough. I knew it was the Libishomen of our legends, but she would not listen.
She was bewitched.
“She told me when she was sure her dark angel’s child was growing inside her. I
didn’t try to discourage her from her plan to run away—I knew even our father
and mother would agree that the child must be destroyed, Pire with it. I went
with her into the deepest parts of the forest. She searched for her demon angel
but found nothing. I cared for her, hunted for her when her strength failed. She
ate the animals raw, drinking their blood. I needed no more confirmation of what
she carried in her womb. I hoped to save her life before I killed the monster.
“But she loved the child inside her. She called him Nahuel, after the jungle cat,
when he grew strong and broke her bones—and loved him still.
“I could not save her. The child ripped his way free of her, and she died quickly,
begging all the while that I would care for her Nahuel. Her dying wish—and I
agreed.
“He bit me, though, when I tried to lift him from her body. I crawled away into
the jungle to die. I didn’t get far—the pain was too much. But he found me; the
newborn child struggled through the underbrush to my side and waited for me.
When the pain ended, he was curled against my side, sleeping.
“I cared for him until he was able to hunt for himself. We hunted the villages
around our forest, staying to ourselves. We have never come so far from our
home, but Nahuel wished to see the child here.”
Huilen bowed her head when she was finished and moved back so she was
partially hidden behind Kachiri.
Aro’s lips were pursed. He stared at the dark-skinned youth.
“Nahuel, you are one hundred and fifty years old?” he questioned.
“Give or take a decade,” he answered in a clear, beautifully warm voice. His
accent was barely noticeable. “We don’t keep track.”
“And you reached maturity at what age?”
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“About seven years after my birth, more or less, I was full grown.”
“You have not changed since then?”
Nahuel shrugged. “Not that I’ve noticed.”
I felt a shudder tremble through Jacob’s body. I didn’t want to think about this
yet. I would wait till the danger was past and I could concentrate.
“And your diet?” Aro pressed, seeming interested in spite of himself.
“Mostly blood, but some human food, too. I can survive on either.”
“You were able to create an immortal?” As Aro gestured to Huilen, his voice was
abruptly intense. I refocused on my shield; perhaps he was seeking a new excuse.
“Yes, but none of the rest can.”
A shocked murmur ran through all three groups.
Aro’s eyebrows shot up. “The rest?”
“My sisters.” Nahuel shrugged again.
Aro stared wildly for a moment before composing his face.
“Perhaps you would tell us the rest of your story, for there seems to be more.”
Nahuel frowned.
“My father came looking for me a few years after my mother’s death.” His
handsome face distorted slightly. “He was pleased to find me.” Nahuel’s tone
suggested the feeling was not mutual. “He had two daughters, but no sons. He
expected me to join him, as my sisters had.
“He was surprised I was not alone. My sisters are not venomous, but whether
that’s due to gender or a random chance… who knows? I already had my family
with Huilen, and I was not interested”—he twisted the word—“in making a
change. I see him from time to time. I have a new sister; she reached maturity
about ten years back.”
“Your father’s name?” Caius asked through gritted teeth.
“Joham,” Nahuel answered. “He considers himself a scientist. He thinks he’s
creating a new super-race.” He made no attempt to disguise the disgust in his
tone.
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Caius looked at me. “Your daughter, is she venomous?” he demanded harshly.
“No,” I responded. Nahuel’s head snapped up at Aro’s question, and his teak eyes
turned to bore into my face.
Caius looked to Aro for confirmation, but Aro was absorbed in his own thoughts.
He pursed his lips and stared at Carlisle, and then Edward, and at last his eyes
rested on me.
Caius growled. “We take care of the aberration here, and then follow it south,” he
urged Aro.
Aro stared into my eyes for a long, tense moment. I had no idea what he was
searching for, or what he found, but after he had measured me for that moment,
something in his face changed, a faint shift in the set of his mouth and eyes, and I
knew that Aro had made his decision.
“Brother,” he said softly to Caius. “There appears to be no danger. This is an
unusual development, but I see no threat. These half-vampire children are much
like us, it appears.”
“Is that your vote?” Caius demanded.
“It is.”
Caius scowled. “And this Joham? This immortal so fond of experimentation?”
“Perhaps we should speak with him,” Aro agreed.
“Stop Joham if you will,” Nahuel said flatly. “But leave my sisters be. They are
innocent.”
Aro nodded, his expression solemn. And then he turned back to his guard with a
warm smile.
“Dear ones,” he called. “We do not fight today.”
The guard nodded in unison and straightened out of their ready positions. The
mist dissipated swiftly, but I held my shield in place. Maybe this was another
trick.
I analyzed their expressions as Aro turned back to us. His face was as benign as
ever, but unlike before, I sensed a strange blankness behind the façade. As if his
scheming was over. Caius was clearly incensed, but his rage was turned inward
now; he was resigned. Marcus looked… bored; there really was no other word for
it. The guard was impassive and disciplined again; there were no individuals
among them, just the whole. They were in formation, ready to depart. The Volturi
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witnesses were still wary; one after another, they departed, scattering into the
woods. As their numbers dwindled, the remaining sped up. Soon they were all
gone.
Aro held his hands out to us, almost apologetic. Behind him, the larger part of the
guard, along with Caius, Marcus, and the silent, mysterious wives, were already
drifting quickly away, their formation precise once again. Only the three that
seemed to be his personal guardians lingered with him.
“I’m so glad this could be resolved without violence,” he said sweetly. “My friend,
Carlisle—how pleased I am to call you friend again! I hope there are no hard
feelings. I know you understand the strict burden that our duty places on our
shoulders.”
“Leave in peace, Aro,” Carlisle said stiffly. “Please remember that we still have
our anonymity to protect here, and keep your guard from hunting in this region.”
“Of course, Carlisle,” Aro assured him. “I am sorry to earn your disapproval, my
dear friend. Perhaps, in time, you will forgive me.”
“Perhaps, in time, if you prove a friend to us again.”
Aro bowed his head, the picture of remorse, and drifted backward for a moment
before he turned around. We watched in silence as the last four Volturi
disappeared into the trees.
It was very quiet. I did not drop my shield.
“Is it really over?” I whispered to Edward.
His smile was huge. “Yes. They’ve given up. Like all bullies, they’re cowards
underneath the swagger.” He chuckled.
Alice laughed with him. “Seriously, people. They’re not coming back. Everybody
can relax now.”
There was another beat of silence.
“Of all the rotten luck,” Stefan muttered.
And then it hit.
Cheers erupted. Deafening howls filled the clearing. Maggie pounded Siobhan on
the back. Rosalie and Emmett kissed again—longer and more ardently than
before. Benjamin and Tia were locked in each other’s arms, as were Carmen and
Eleazar. Esme held Alice and Jasper in a tight embrace. Carlisle was warmly
thanking the South American newcomers who had saved us all. Kachiri stood
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very close to Zafrina and Senna, their fingertips interlocked. Garrett picked Kate
up off the ground and swung her around in a circle.
Stefan spit on the snow. Vladimir ground his teeth together with a sour
expression.
And I half-climbed the giant russet wolf to rip my daughter off his back and then
crushed her to my chest. Edward’s arms were around us in the same second.
“Nessie, Nessie, Nessie,” I crooned.
Jacob laughed his big, barky laugh and poked the back of my head with his nose.
“Shut up,” I mumbled.
“I get to stay with you?” Nessie demanded.
“Forever,” I promised her.
We had forever. And Nessie was going to be fine and healthy and strong. Like the
half-human Nahuel, in a hundred and fifty years she would still be young. And we
would all be together.
Happiness expanded like an explosion inside me—so extreme, so violent that I
wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
“Forever,” Edward echoed in my ear.
I couldn’t speak anymore. I lifted my head and kissed him with a passion that
might possibly set the forest on fire.
I wouldn’t have noticed.
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39. THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER
“So it was a combination of things there at the end, but what it really boiled down
to was… Bella,” Edward was explaining. Our family and our two remaining guests
sat in the Cullens’ great room while the forest turned black outside the tall
windows.
Vladimir and Stefan had vanished before we’d stopped celebrating. They were
extremely disappointed in the way things had turned out, but Edward said that
they’d enjoyed the Volturi’s cowardice almost enough to make up for their
frustration.
Benjamin and Tia were quick to follow after Amun and Kebi, anxious to let them
know the outcome of the conflict; I was sure we would see them again—Benjamin
and Tia, at least. None of the nomads lingered. Peter and Charlotte had a short
conversation with Jasper, and then they were gone, too.
The reunited Amazons had been anxious to return home as well—they had a
difficult time being away from their beloved rain forest—though they were more
reluctant to leave than some of the others.
“You must bring the child to see me,” Zafrina had insisted. “Promise me, young
one.”
Nessie had pressed her hand to my neck, pleading as well.
“Of course, Zafrina,” I’d agreed.
“We shall be great friends, my Nessie,” the wild woman had declared before
leaving with her sisters.
The Irish coven continued the exodus.
“Well done, Siobhan,” Carlisle complimented her as they said goodbye.
“Ah, the power of wishful thinking,” she answered sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
And then she was serious. “Of course, this isn’t over. The Volturi won’t forgive
what happened here.”
Edward was the one to answer that. “They’ve been seriously shaken; their
confidence is shattered. But, yes, I’m sure they’ll recover from the blow someday.
And then . . .” His eyes tightened. “I imagine they’ll try to pick us off separately.”
“Alice will warn us when they intend to strike,” Siobhan said in a sure voice. “And
we’ll gather again. Perhaps the time will come when our world is ready to be free
of the Volturi altogether.”
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“That time may come,” Carlisle replied. “If it does, we’ll stand together.”
“Yes, my friend, we will,” Siobhan agreed. “And how can we fail, when I will it
otherwise?” She let out a great peal of laughter.
“Exactly,” Carlisle said. He and Siobhan embraced, and then he shook Liam’s
hand. “Try to find Alistair and tell him what happened. I’d hate to think of him
hiding under a rock for the next decade.”
Siobhan laughed again. Maggie hugged both Nessie and me, and then the Irish
coven was gone.
The Denalis were the last to leave, Garrett with them—as he would be from now
on, I was fairly sure. The atmosphere of celebration was too much for Tanya and
Kate. They needed time to grieve for their lost sister.
Huilen and Nahuel were the ones who stayed, though I had expected those last
two to go back with the Amazons. Carlisle was deep in fascinated conversation
with Huilen; Nahuel sat close beside her, listening while Edward told the rest of
us the story of the conflict as only he knew it.
“Alice gave Aro the excuse he needed to get out of the fight. If he hadn’t been so
terrified of Bella, he probably would have gone ahead with their original plan.”
“Terrified?” I said skeptically. “Of me?”
He smiled at me with a look I didn’t entirely recognize—it was tender, but also
awed and even exasperated. “When will you ever see yourself clearly?” he said
softly. Then he spoke louder, to the others as well as to me. “The Volturi haven’t
fought a fair fight in about twenty-five hundred years. And they’ve never, never
fought one where they were at a disadvantage. Especially since they gained Jane
and Alec, they’ve only been involved with unopposed slaughterings.
“You should have seen how we looked to them! Usually, Alec cuts off all sense
and feeling from their victims while they go through the charade of a counsel.
That way, no one can run when the verdict is given. But there we stood, ready,
waiting, outnumbering them, with gifts of our own while their gifts were rendered
useless by Bella. Aro knew that with Zafrina on our side, they would be the blind
ones when the battle commenced. I’m sure our numbers would have been pretty
severely decimated, but they were sure that theirs would be, too. There was even
a good possibility that they would lose. They’ve never dealt with that possibility
before. They didn’t deal with it well today.”
“Hard to feel confident when you’re surrounded by horse-sized wolves,” Emmett
laughed, poking Jacob’s arm.
Jacob flashed a grin at him.
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“It was the wolves that stopped them in the first place,” I said.
“Sure was,” Jacob agreed.
“Absolutely,” Edward agreed. “That was another sight they’ve never seen. The
true Children of the Moon rarely move in packs, and they are never much in
control of themselves. Sixteen enormous regimented wolves was a surprise they
weren’t prepared for. Caius is actually terrified of werewolves. He almost lost a
fight with one a few thousand years ago and never got over it.”
“So there are real werewolves?” I asked. “With the full moon and silver bullets
and all that?”
Jacob snorted. “Real. Does that make me imaginary?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Full moon, yes,” Edward said. “Silver bullets, no—that was just another one of
those myths to make humans feel like they had a sporting chance. There aren’t
very many of them left. Caius has had them hunted into near extinction.”
“And you never mentioned this because… ?”
“It never came up.”
I rolled my eyes, and Alice laughed, leaning forward—she was tucked under
Edward’s other arm—to wink at me.
I glared back.
I loved her insanely, of course. But now that I’d had a chance to realize that she
was really home, that her defection was only a ruse because Edward had to
believe that she’d abandoned us, I was beginning to feel pretty irritated with her.
Alice had some explaining to do.
Alice sighed. “Just get it off your chest, Bella.”
“How could you do that to me, Alice?”
“It was necessary.”
“Necessary!” I exploded. “You had me totally convinced that we were all going to
die! I’ve been a wreck for weeks.”
“It might have gone that way,” she said calmly. “In which case you needed to be
prepared to save Nessie.”
541
Instinctively, I held Nessie—asleep now on my lap—tighter in my arms.
“But you knew there were other ways, too,” I accused. “You knew there was hope.
Did it ever occur to you that you could have told me everything? I know Edward
had to think we were at a dead end for Aro’s sake, but you could have told me.”
She looked at me speculatively for a moment. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re
just not that good an actress.”
“This was about my acting skills?”
“Oh, take it down an octave, Bella. Do you have any idea how complicated this
was to set up? I couldn’t even be sure that someone like Nahuel existed—all I
knew was that I would be looking for something I couldn’t see! Try to imagine
searching for a blind spot—not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Plus we had to
send back the key witnesses, like we weren’t in enough of a hurry. And then
keeping my eyes open all the time in case you decided to throw me any more
instructions. At some point you’re going to have to tell me what exactly is in Rio.
Before any of that, I had to try to see every trick the Volturi might come in with
and give you what few clues I could so you would be ready for their strategy, and I
only had just a few hours to trace out all the possibilities. Most of all, I had to
make sure you’d all believe that I was ditching out on you, because Aro had to be
positive that you had nothing left up your sleeves or he never would have
committed to an out the way he did. And if you think I didn’t feel like a
schmuck—”
“Okay, okay!” I interrupted. “Sorry! I know it was rough for you, too. It’s just
that… well, I missed you like crazy, Alice. Don’t do that to me again.”
Alice’s trilling laugh rang through the room, and we all smiled to hear that music
once more. “I missed you, too, Bella. So forgive me, and try to be satisfied with
being the superhero of the day.”
Everyone else laughed now, and I ducked my face into Nessie’s hair,
embarrassed.
Edward went back to analyzing every shift of intention and control that had
happened in the meadow today, declaring that it was my shield that had made the
Volturi run away with their tails between their legs. The way everyone looked at
me made me uncomfortable. Even Edward. It was like I had grown a hundred
feet during the course of the morning. I tried to ignore the impressed looks,
mostly keeping my eyes on Nessie’s sleeping face and Jacob’s unchanged
expression. I would always be just Bella to him, and that was a relief.
The hardest stare to ignore was also the most confusing one.
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It wasn’t like this half-human, half-vampire Nahuel was used to thinking of me in
a certain way. For all he knew, I went around routing attacking vampires every
day and the scene in the meadow had been nothing unusual at all. But the boy
never took his eyes off me. Or maybe he was looking at Nessie. That made me
uncomfortable, too.
He couldn’t be oblivious to the fact that Nessie was the only female of his kind
that wasn’t his half-sister.
I didn’t think this idea had occurred to Jacob yet. I kind of hoped it wouldn’t
soon. I’d had enough fighting to last me for a while.
Eventually, the others ran out of questions for Edward, and the discussion
dissolved into a bunch of smaller conversations.
I felt oddly tired. Not sleepy, of course, but just like the day had been long
enough. I wanted some peace, some normality. I wanted Nessie in her own bed; I
wanted the walls of my own little home around me.
I looked at Edward and felt for a moment like I could read his mind. I could see
he felt exactly the same way. Ready for some peace.
“Should we take Nessie . . .”
“That’s probably a good idea,” he agreed quickly. “I’m sure she didn’t sleep
soundly last night, what with all the snoring.”
He grinned at Jacob.
Jacob rolled his eyes and then yawned. “It’s been a while since I slept in a bed. I
bet my dad would get a kick out of having me under his roof again.”
I touched his cheek. “Thank you, Jacob.”
“Anytime, Bella. But you already know that.”
He got up, stretched, kissed the top of Nessie’s head, and then the top of mine.
Finally, he punched Edward’s shoulder. “See you guys tomorrow. I guess things
are going to be kind of boring now, aren’t they?”
“I fervently hope so,” Edward said.
We got up when he was gone; I shifted my weight carefully so that Nessie was
never jostled. I was deeply grateful to see her getting a sound sleep. So much
weight had been on her tiny shoulders. It was time she got to be a child again—
protected and secure. A few more years of childhood.
543
The idea of peace and security reminded me of someone who didn’t have those
feelings all the time.
“Oh, Jasper?” I asked as we turned for the door.
Jasper was sandwiched tight in between Alice and Esme, somehow seeming more
central to the family picture than usual. “Yes, Bella?”
“I’m curious—why is J. Jenks scared stiff by just the sound of your name?”
Jasper chuckled. “It’s just been my experience that some kinds of working
relationships are better motivated by fear than by monetary gain.”
I frowned, promising myself that I would take over that working relationship
from now on and spare J the heart attack that was surely on the way.
We were kissed and hugged and wished a good night to our family. The only off
note was Nahuel again, who looked intently after us, as if he wished he could
follow.
Once we were across the river, we walked barely faster than human speed, in no
hurry, holding hands. I was sick of being under a deadline, and I just wanted to
take my time. Edward must have felt the same.
“I have to say, I’m thoroughly impressed with Jacob right now,” Edward told me.
“The wolves make quite an impact, don’t they?”
“That’s not what I mean. Not once today did he think about the fact that,
according to Nahuel, Nessie will be fully matured in just six and a half years.”
I considered that for a minute. “He doesn’t see her that way. He’s not in a hurry
for her to grow up. He just wants her to be happy.”
“I know. Like I said, impressive. It goes against the grain to say so, but she could
do worse.”
I frowned. “I’m not going to think about that for approximately six and a half
more years.”
Edward laughed and then sighed. “Of course, it looks like he’ll have some
competition to worry about when the time comes.”
My frown deepened. “I noticed. I’m grateful to Nahuel for today, but all the
staring was a little weird. I don’t care if she is the only half-vampire he’s not
related to.”
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“Oh, he wasn’t staring at her—he was staring at you.”
That’s what it had seemed like… but that didn’t make any sense. “Why would he
do that?”
“Because you’re alive,” he said quietly.
“You lost me.”
“All his life,” he explained, “—and he’s fifty years older than I am—”
“Decrepit,” I interjected.
He ignored me. “He’s always thought of himself as an evil creation, a murderer by
nature. His sisters all killed their mothers as well, but they thought nothing of it.
Joham raised them to think of the humans as animals, while they were gods. But
Nahuel was taught by Huilen, and Huilen loved her sister more than anyone else.
It shaped his whole perspective. And, in some ways, he truly hated himself.”
“That’s so sad,” I murmured.
“And then he saw the three of us—and realized for the first time that just because
he is half immortal, it doesn’t mean he is inherently evil. He looks at me and
sees… what his father should have been.”
“You are fairly ideal in every way,” I agreed.
He snorted and then was serious again. “He looks at you and sees the life his
mother should have had.”
“Poor Nahuel,” I murmured, and then sighed because I knew I would never be
able to think badly of him after this, no matter how uncomfortable his stare made
me.
“Don’t be sad for him. He’s happy now. Today, he’s finally begun to forgive
himself.”
I smiled for Nahuel’s happiness and then thought that today belonged to
happiness. Though Irina’s sacrifice was a dark shadow against the white light,
keeping the moment from perfection, the joy was impossible to deny. The life I’d
fought for was safe again. My family was reunited. My daughter had a beautiful
future stretching out endlessly in front of her. Tomorrow I would go see my
father; he would see that the fear in my eyes had been replaced with joy, and he
would be happy, too. Suddenly, I was sure that I wouldn’t find him there alone. I
hadn’t been as observant as I might have been in the last few weeks, but in this
moment it was like I’d known all along. Sue would be with Charlie—the
545
werewolves’ mom with the vampire’s dad—and he wouldn’t be alone anymore. I
smiled widely at this new insight.
But most significant in this tidal wave of happiness was the surest fact of all: I
was with Edward. Forever.
Not that I’d want to repeat the last several weeks, but I had to admit they’d made
me appreciate what I had more than ever.
The cottage was a place of perfect peace in the silver-blue night. We carried
Nessie to her bed and gently tucked her in. She smiled as she slept.
I took Aro’s gift from around my neck and tossed it lightly into the corner of her
room. She could play with it if she wished; she liked sparkly things.
Edward and I walked slowly to our room, swinging our arms between us.
“A night for celebrations,” he murmured, and he put his hand under my chin to
lift my lips to his.
“Wait,” I hesitated, pulling away.
He looked at me in confusion. As a general rule, I didn’t pull away. Okay, it was
more than a general rule. This was a first.
“I want to try something,” I informed him, smiling slightly at his bewildered
expression.
I put my hands on both sides of his face and closed my eyes in concentration.
I hadn’t done very well with this when Zafrina had tried to teach me before, but I
knew my shield better now. I understood the part that fought against separation
from me, the automatic instinct to preserve self above all else.
It still wasn’t anywhere near as easy as shielding other people along with myself. I
felt the elastic recoil again as my shield fought to protect me. I had to strain to
push it entirely away from me; it took all of my focus.
“Bella!” Edward whispered in shock.
I knew it was working then, so I concentrated even harder, dredging up the
specific memories I’d saved for this moment, letting them flood my mind, and
hopefully his as well.
Some of the memories were not clear—dim human memories, seen through weak
eyes and heard through weak ears: the first time I’d seen his face… the way it felt
when he’d held me in the meadow… the sound of his voice through the darkness
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of my faltering consciousness when he’d saved me from James… his face as he
waited under a canopy of flowers to marry me… every precious moment from the
island… his cold hands touching our baby through my skin…
And the sharp memories, perfectly recalled: his face when I’d opened my eyes to
my new life, to the endless dawn of immortality… that first kiss… that first night…
His lips, suddenly fierce against mine, broke my concentration.
With a gasp, I lost my grip on the struggling weight I was holding away from
myself. It snapped back like stressed elastic, protecting my thoughts once again.
“Oops, lost it!” I sighed.
“I heard you,” he breathed. “How? How did you do that?”
“Zafrina’s idea. We practiced with it a few times.”
He was dazed. He blinked twice and shook his head.
“Now you know,” I said lightly, and shrugged. “No one’s ever loved anyone as
much as I love you.”
“You’re almost right.” He smiled, his eyes still a little wider than usual. “I know of
just one exception.”
“Liar.”
He started to kiss me again, but then stopped abruptly.
“Can you do it again?” he wondered.
I grimaced. “It’s very difficult.”
He waited, his expression eager.
“I can’t keep it up if I’m even the slightest bit distracted,” I warned him.
“I’ll be good,” he promised.
I pursed my lips, my eyes narrowing. Then I smiled.
I pressed my hands to his face again, hefted the shield right out of my mind, and
then started in where I’d left off—with the crystal-clear memory of the first night
of my new life… lingering on the details.
I laughed breathlessly when his urgent kiss interrupted my efforts again.
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“Damn it,” he growled, kissing hungrily down the edge of my jaw.
“We have plenty of time to work on it,” I reminded him.
“Forever and forever and forever,” he murmured.
“That sounds exactly right to me.”
And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.